The Moral of the Story
by Red Tale
Summary: Richie's POV. Some Bang-Babies return, some change, and some lose their powers for good. But that's not what makes the story so interesting. Highlighted by religious and atheist quotes, and features a magazine called Dreads in Beds.
1. Prologue

The Moral of The Story – Red Turtle

Prologue:

Problems.

I had them in spades.

And not just little 20-page final due problems. No, I had big problems. Lost my home, lost my powers, lost any hope of ever being "more than friends" with Virgil…

Lost one of my cousins…

Who was the one who started this whole spiral in my life.

He was my worst problem.

But sometimes the worst problems have the best solutions.

Let me tell you a story…


	2. Chapter I

The Moral of the Story – Red Turtle – Chapter 1

A/N: Perhaps now we should get the formalities out of the way, so they don't come to disrupt the story later:

1) I own nothing but my admiration to Dwayne McDuffie for creating Static Shock and all the Milestone comics. He's created a universe for us to play in, and that's quite an impressive feat.

2) The phrase "let me tell you a story" is how every issue of Tales of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles begins, and it's a fine beginning, so I adapted it here.

3) This story will contain religion (or the lack thereof) in it, as that is a cornerstone of morality in our current culture and something I wish to explore through the actions of our heroes and enemies. It is not my intention to portray any of this narrowly, or to frighten anyone. (please stay!)

4) Around this story you'll see quotes from all sides of morality, opening and closing each chapter to set the tone overall.

5) This story reflects a combination of my own life experiences and those reflected through the following works:

Bob Avakian, - author of many thoughtful works on religion and morality

With God On Their Side - this book was the principle inspiration for writing this story

Positive atheism – website source of about 90 percent of my quotes, both good and scary

And now on with the story:

"_The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect."  
-- **Ronald Reagan**, at an ecumenical prayer breakfast in Dallas on August 23, 1984, in "Quotable: Where Reagan and Religion Intersect" (Dallas Morning News: June 11, 2004)_

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"Son, your cousins are going to be staying with us for a while", my father announced unceremoniously.

"For how long", I asked, figuring this was the gentlest way to try and figure out why. I couldn't think of any reason short of my uncle and aunt's death. They don't live far enough away to come for a vacation, and we didn't have enough room in the house to provide for that anyway. They've never even spent the night here.

Dad looks too stressed for this to be a social visit, but not stressed enough for anyone to have died or their house burned down. Over the years I've learned how to use the tiniest hint of emotions to extrapolate all the information I can.

I'm leaning towards divorce or some or family trouble.

"Indefinitely", he answers, "Their parents need to work some things out."

I silently congratulated myself for having figured so much out with so little information. Of course, about five minutes with backpack and I could find out if they had applied for divorce, had any trouble with the law, were in debt, if Mathew was having trouble in school, if they were seeing psychiatrists…

I forget I can do things like that. Its probably better that I don't.

"Where will they stay?" I asked, wondering if I was going to have clear out the basement. Already I was calculating the increased bathroom waiting time. One bathroom for five people…

"We'll work it out" he sighed.

Loosely translated, that meant, 'I don't feel like talking about this anymore why don't you go to your room'.

"I'll just go to my room now", I announced.

He nodded distractedly.

A few days later I found out what the arrangement was. It was decided that my girl cousin, Elizabeth, needed her own space, by virtue of being a teenage girl (16, slightly younger than me). We would clear out the attic for her, and work on making it habitual. My younger boy cousin, Mathew, who was fourteen, would share my room with me.

This transformed an already uncomfortable living situation with my parents into an unbearable one. Besides the fact that I didn't really know either of my cousins outside of the usual holiday get-togethers, and the inherit awkwardness of suddenly having them around all the time, this was going to make it impossible to maintain any shred of my secret identity at home. Sure there was always the danger of my Mom discovering something about Gear, like overhearing me talking to Virgil or something, but that didn't worry me too much. I knew my Mom, she probably wouldn't even tell my father, and she didn't really have any other friends or anything. She certainly wouldn't announce it to the world. And my father probably wouldn't notice if I was wearing my Gear uniform and fighting bang babies in the living room. But an unpredictable fourteen-year old living in the very same room with me was an entirely different story.

From now on, everything having to do in any way with Static or Gear needs to stay at the Gas Station, or maybe Virgil's house, which was closer than the Gas Station. It was also more protected, in that no one was going to go wondering around it and wonder what's inside. Virgil's house would be better in a lot of ways, because I trusted his family, even his sister who didn't yet know about us.

Maybe I could just move in with Virgil until this whole thing blows over. I'm almost 18 now anyway; legally I can almost do anything I want.

But, while I do stay there about 80 percent of the time, it's not the same as actually living there. Virgil would need his space eventually, and their home isn't much bigger than mine. Him and Daisy were getting pretty heavy lately, and he's not necessarily going to want me around when...

Shaking my head I shut that doorway of contradictions before they overwhelmed me. But the fact remained, as miserable as my home life was about to become, it would be infinitely better than the miserable possibilities presented by living with Virgil. I could potentially turn my only retreat into another hell. Even if I were able to turn it into a haven, in the very unlikely best-case scenario where Virgil and I are having orgies every night, living in such close quarters would eventually destroy our relationship.

It's the golden rule; after all, at least it should be among more young women I know. Never, ever move in with someone you love because you have nowhere else to go.

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"From whatever vantage point one looks, it is unmistakable that there is what could be called a moral crisis in America. There has been, to a significant degree, a breakdown of 'traditional morality'. But the answer to this--at least the answer that is in the interests of the majority of people in the U.S. and the overwhelming majority of humanity--is not a more aggressive assertion of that 'traditional morality' but winning people to a radically different morality, in the process of and as a key part of radically transforming society and the world as a whole. It is not the tightening but the shattering of tradition's chains that is called for." Bob Avakian


	3. Chapter II

The Moral of the Story – Chapter II – Red Turtle

_"Under no circumstances would I ever vote for an atheist for President because they are terrible and have no moral code."  
-- **Star Jones**,(_**Spokesperson for Payless Shoes**_) on her television show, The View: she later refused to apologize after being called to the mat by atheist groups (March 16, 2002), pieced together from "__No God, Period!__" and other sources_

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I couldn't take it anymore. I was literally about to go nuts when the phone rang. I grabbed it, enjoying the rush of anticipation.

"Hey Rich", Virgil greeted me.

"Hi, V", I responded before he could say anything more, "What's that? You need help with your English Final? Well, I could try and explain it to you over the phone but…hmm. I see. Well, I have this obligation to welcome my cousins, but they seem to be okay so let me ask my parents. Hold on."

"Mom, Dad, can I help Virgil with his homework?" I called out, ignoring Virgil's confused "huh?".

I held my breath waiting for the answer. Virgil has a motto, 'Don't start none, won't be none'. This constituted 'starting some', for I was treading on thin ground abandoning my cousins barely an hour after they got here, in front of my parents and uncle. I did not want the 'some' that could potentially result, but I was so desperate, so wretchedly desperate…

(flashback)

All the necessary arrangements were made in time to welcome Mathew and Elizabeth to our home. In addition to removing all Static/Gear related paraphernalia, I moved about half my possessions into the basement, so that Mathew could have a bed and bookcase along one wall, and I had the same arrangement along the other. I decided to be generous with the closet, when I went through everything in there I realized that I basically only wore about ten articles of clothing through out my life, not including underwear and socks, and all of that could fit in two drawers of my dresser. So he now had one drawer and all the hanging space except for my tuxedo (never know when someone's going to get married or die, my father always says), and he had all the shelf space above.

I kept my desk in the center of the room, but drastically reduced my supplies and vowed to keep it much neater. Three drawers of that were emptied for him to use, and four for me since drawing and designing was something I greatly valued. I would have to be careful though, not to design anything here that could be overtly superhero-ish, or which would betray my abnormal intelligence.

I packed away most of my models, but left a select few of the coolest ones out for him to admire. When I was younger I'd always wanted a little brother, and while I don't think I'll get that close to Mathew in any respect, it'd be nice to have some kind of relationship with him. He even looks a lot like me; we're both blond, wear glasses, similar faces. I'm older but with him growing at the rate he is he'll probably end up bigger than I am. He's already nearly my height, and twice my build. Who knows, maybe he can eventually be trusted with our secret and help out somehow. Or maybe he can just be a friend, make life here a little bit better.

Elizabeth I was less sure about. It wasn't just that she was a girl, but that I've really never been close to her, and the last few holidays she's preferred to spend with friends, so I haven't even seen her in a little over two years. She strikes me as more of a trendy kid, who will hang out in malls and date the boys that used to beat me up.

Their Dad dropped them off early Saturday mourning. After our brief greetings, Mom politely suggested I show them to their rooms while she and our Dads talked.

I showed Mathew our room first, where he set about unpacking. He had only one suitcase with him, a large one, but still…I would think a fourteen year old would have more than that. Elizabeth had a more respectable two suitcases, plus a purse and backpack. I was carrying one of the suitcases for her.

We continued on to the attic. Our attic had a normal set of stairs leading up from the hallway, so she didn't have to pull down stairs like in some horror movie. But it shared some characteristics of the horror-movie attic. It had strangely-shaped windows, leading to strangely shaped shadows. More shadows lurked in the sloping roof, and there was only one electric cord supply for the whole room, which was run from our hallway. Plus there was the noise factor. From six in the mourning till six at night, city pigeons cooed their harmonious song from with in the alcoves of the roof. You could hear them even now, as we walked in…cooooooo...coooooooo…

At least it had that fresh pine scent from Mom's recent scrubbing.

I set her luggage in the middle of the room and watched her sigh dejectedly as she looked around her future home.

It just now occurred to me that ten years have passed since Elizabeth even set foot in our house. Officially, my uncle has the nice, big house with a back yard and a Great America within ten minutes drive, therefore much more suitable for entertaining over the holidays. Unofficially, the entire city of Dakota was deemed the equivalent of Hell. Even before the riots, and all the bang-baby stuff, they were uncomfortable here, and wanted to move badly. Our Dads are brothers and share the same racist views. Ironically, it was because of my Dad's racism that he was determined to stay here and not be "pushed out". He may have chilled on that over the years, but I doubt any of his understanding was passed on to his brother or Elizabeth. So, this is probably going to be quite traumatic for her.

Maybe it will be a good thing.

"You alright, Liz?" I asked gently.

"To be honest-", she quickly looked around, then whispered, "I'm kind of scared living here."

"It hasn't been that bad for me", I assured her.

"Yeah, that's cause you grew up here", she said, "You're practically one of them."

"I'm sorry?" I asked, hoping that didn't mean what I thought it meant.

"Everything's different here. In Oakdale, it's all one neighborhood, and you know everyone. You can go anywhere in the whole town. Here, one block is nice, the next is ghetto. If I walk five blocks that way I could be raped and killed."

"Well, I could try and introduce you-"

"Forget it. I'm not going to be here that long. Just tell me where the nearest church is."

"It's about five blocks that way."

She raised an eyebrow at me, probably one of the few traits we shared. Other than being blond she didn't really look like me at all, and even in being blond she was a totally different shade.

"My best friend goes to church Sundays. You can go with him", I told her.

Another eyebrow raise.

"Don't you go to Church Sundays?"

"Uh, nope. I go for the holidays, that's all."

"What about…don't your Mom and Dad go?"

"Sometimes. Mom prefers to watch those sermons on TV. Maybe you could watch with her."

She had a very strange look on her face. I realized that church was probably a normal routine for her, and perhaps having it broken in the face of all this family turmoil might be a bit much for her.

"Look, my friend Virgil and his family know the pastor and everything. They'll be happy to take you, and I promise nothing bad will happen."

I hoped I could keep that promise. There was much less Bang-Baby phenomenon ever since they released the cure, but every once in a while something happened to keep us on our toes.

"Okay. Thanks, Richie." she sighed.

Course, she might not be thanking me when she finds out its a mainly black congregation, including Virgil. But, who knows, maybe it won't bother her at all. I'm certainly not going to mention it now, I'll just see what happens tomarrow.

I left and went to check in on Mathew, already settled on his bed, reading a book, radiating social-awkwardness. Aww, just like me at his age.

"Hey Mathew", I greeted.

"Not now Richie", he mumbled, not even looking up, "I'm in the middle of something."

Wow. So much for having a brotherly relationship. I couldn't even bear to be in the room with him after that rebuttal, leading me to wonder around the house looking for a suitable place to hang out.

And that's when the true horror of this new living situation hit me.

My room was the only escape within this small, oppressive house. The living room was out as my parents and uncle were still talking, and when my father is home that is where he spends his time, watching football and drinking. I can pretend I like football enough to be there some of the time, but it is not a hangout (not like Virgil's living room, which invites sitting and playing). Mom occupies the kitchen; this is where she spends her time reading and such. She wouldn't mind my company, but her presence is not conducive to relaxing or thinking. The basement has been a disaster area for as long as I've been alive, especially since I hadn't been too neat with the boxes of my stuff I had just thrown down there. Putting the necessary effort into organizing it would probably just arouse my parents' suspicion.

The bathroom was the only place left. I like the bathroom, it's nice and clean and sunny, a comforting place to be when you are sick. But with four other people here now, I wasn't going to be able to spend any kind of time in there. I'd probably be lucky to be able to take a ten-minute shower some days (course, when Mathew is taking a shower I'll have the room to myself temporarily).

I'd finally just sat on the stairs letting my brain try to come up with better options when Virgil called.

(End flashback)

"Fine, Richie, just be back tonight, alright", Dad answered.

"Yes, sure", I replied cheerfully as I hung the phone up and ran out the house. I didn't even tell Virgil I was coming, but I can explain it all once I get there.

Maybe I should move in with him.

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_**Mme La Maréchale**: Are you not Monsieur Crudeli?  
**Crudeli**: Yes, Madame.  
**Mme La Maréchale**: Then you're the man who doesn't believe in anything.  
**Crudeli**: In person, madame.  
**Mme La Maréchale**: Yet your moral principles are the same as those of a believer?  
**Crudeli**: Why should they not be -- as long as the believer is an honest man?  
**Mme La Maréchale**: And do you act upon your principles?  
**Crudeli**: To the best of my ability.  
**Mme La Maréchale**: What? You don't steal? You don't kill people? You don't rob them?  
**Crudeli**: Very rarely.  
**Mme La Maréchale**: Then what do you gain by not being a believer?  
**Crudeli**: Nothing at all, madame. Is one a believer from motives of profit?_  
-- **Denis Diderot**, "Conversation with a Christian Lady" (1774), trans. Derek Coltman, quoted from S. T. Joshi, ed., _Atheism: A Reader,_ p. 229


	4. Chapter III

The Moral of the Story – Chapter III – Red Turtle

"_The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship." -- **Boy Scouts of America**, policy (ca, 1970)_

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Virgil and I decided on our favorite hangout activity, which is being Static and Gear and flying around the city. Since the second big bang, there are very few bang babies to contend with, and most of them seem to keep a low profile, probably not wanting to risk another cure being unleashed. Every once in a while, something happens to keep us on our toes, and of course there's the omnipresent threat of Ebon/Hotstreak monster returning. But, all in all, we mostly use the time to fly around and talk.

"Hey, V? Would you take my cousins to church tomorrow?"

"Sure…wait…why can't you take them?"

"Well, I figured, you know, you go all the time, you could show them around better than I could."

"Why is that?" he asked after a pause.

"Why is what?"

"Why don't you ever go to church?"

"I don't…really care for…organized religion."

Although I hesitated saying it, I didn't think it would be that startling a revelation to him. Certainly not enough to warrant a cold stop in mid air, and not one but both eyebrows raised. He'd stopped so suddenly I had to circle back.

"But…you spend Christmas mass with us every year."

"You invite me every year."

He had to think about that.

"But we're superheroes. I mean, I just thought, you know, we're so committed to humanity and all…"

Now it was my turn to raise an eyebrow.

"You think all superheroes are Christian?"

"No. But wouldn't they have to be put here by God? I mean we're doing His work, making the world a better place and all. I can't imagine doing what we do without being having been raised the way I was."

My mind exploded, not only with realizing for the first time that he viewed us as angels or something, but with all the possible responses to this, everything from historical experiences of Christianity on humanity to pure materialism regarding our development over the years into superheroes. It took me a couple minutes to settle on a nice, friendly, agnostic approach.

"I don't know if there's some greater force driving us here, but I do know that I'm not going to church."

After a few seconds, his eyebrows lowered to an acceptable level.

"Okay."

"I didn't realize it meant so much to you", I told him.

"I didn't realize it meant so little to you", he replied.

(ouch).

We parted ways rather awkwardly. We've had arguments before, but this was markedly different.

I was back in time for an awkward dinner. My uncle had left, and my Dad had taken it upon himself to fill in as their father, awkward enough with out the fact that he had almost no practice with me. He stressed everyone's title, from "Ritchie, pass your cousin the potatoes" to "Elizabeth, your Aunt, cousin and I would love to take you and your brother to the museum next week". They gave stoic answers to his stoic questions, and the whole thing came off as a weird Leave-it-To-Beaver episode, which you watch waiting for Wally to blow up at someone, and are very disappointed when nothing happens. Not that I want anything to happen, mind you, its just weirdly disappointing.

The next mourning I dedicated entirely to thinking. Virgil and his family came by and took my cousins to church, so I had at least a couple hours to myself in my room. Hopefully that would be all I needed.

The topic: Telepathy, and its…cousin, telekinesis. And their cousin, terror. Both for me and those around me, once they found out.

I didn't so much need the two hours to research this, but to come to grips with it enough to seriously confront it, and figure out how to not use it.

I already controlled Backpack with my thoughts; the vocal orders were more for show, and to not allow myself to fall into the practice of just using thoughts. Technically, that was already using telepathy. I allowed it because backpack was just a robot; there weren't any ramifications for messing up with it as there were with humans.

But since the second Bang, I'd been feeling waves of telepathy towards humans, especially with Virgil.

Yesterday during our argument these waves materialized into ability. When my mind was exploding with responses, one of them, the hardest to control, was just an image depicting slavery under Christians in this country, a standard history book version that impressed upon me that Religion was not always a good thing, and one that I thought would be particularly sharp to him as well. This image hung in my mind waiting to be sent to Virgil. As if it was an email, and I could just press 'send' and instantly he would see it.

Thinking of it as an email made it seem harmless.

And so far there hadn't been anything besides 'email' type urges. Communicating silently would actually be very advantageous in a fighting situation, especially communicating not just words but images, sounds, perhaps texture if necessary. If it remained controllable, i.e. no knowing each other's deepest thoughts, it could be great.

But there was that disturbing uncontrollable that nagged me. I have read many, many comic books, and if there's one thing I've learned, its that telepathic are very vulnerable. There's always stronger ones out there, and as soon as they learn about you they're all trying to kidnap you and take you over and turn you against your loved ones. I seem to attract more than enough kidnappers with out throwing that element in the mix. And with things having calmed down so much over the last year, I don't want to start it all up again with this.

I've also read a lot of Stephen King, so the other thing I know is that telepathy and telekinesis become horror. People get killed. Lives get destroyed. Entire high schools go up in flames.

I don't want anything to do with that.

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_True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those  
tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others. It is not obedience to authority, and while it is often consistent with and reinforced by religious belief, it is not piety.  
-- **Edward O. Wilson**, Consilience_

A/N: Show me some love (or hate, if you think that's warranted), I'll even accept indifference_  
_


	5. Chapter IV

The Moral of the Story

Chapter IV

A/N: Come gather around, you all. It's time for an author/reader chat. Now, normally I don't respond to every review, but I decided that given that this is my first Static story, that it's a hard story to write and that I don't know most of you (as I am usually in the ninja turtle section, where I write these kind of stories all the time for them), I thought I should take a minute and do this here:

Thank you Saturn for your helpful hints and enthusiasm

Foresaken, you didn't so much inspire the story as give me the boost of courage to try writing it. You're a very refreshing presence here. I'm glad you're digging it.

crashfourit I like the review. Short, to the point, and told me what I need to know. I looked at your America's Debate site; I might start hanging out there.

WhiteRat – hmm. Well, my thesis that inspired this story was that in the cartoons Richie is never portrayed as religious. Frieda is clearly Jewish, if you're talking about the Frozen Out episode it was her family that was celebrating Hanukah, Virgil is clearly Christian, one of their friends is referred to as being Muslim, and Daisy had Kwanzaa. But Richie is never identified with anything. Every time Richie or his family is in Church, they seem to be there more for Virgil (memorial for his mom) or for social events (like Christmas). If anything he would be Catholic, given that the make a big deal about his Irish ancestry. Although a few times Virgil has referred to God (I'm still researching this), Richie has only done so as a sort of after thought. I think he's agnostic at best. In the comics, the character that he is loosely based on is Jewish, but that doesn't seem to have carried over. So, that's where the exploring his faith comes in.

Sailor – Hi! So glad to see you. Well, the awkwardness in their relationships going to get worse before it gets better, just like most friendships (in fact some of this I am basing on my own best friend in high school). And as for believing in God…well, we'll just see how the story unravels.

For those of you who are reading this and haven't yet reviewed, that's cool. Thanks to the changes in FF I can now know how many people are doing that. Course, now I have a little bit of stage fright, knowing exactly how many people are reading this…(deep breathe). But, reviews are especially good for this story because it's my first Static Shock and I want to make sure I'm on it.

Anyway, on with the story.

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"_I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good... Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."  
-- Randall Terry, quoted in The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, August 16, 1993_

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_  
_

PART I:

Around noon there came a knock at the door. I was expecting Virgil to just drop my cousins back off, but it looked like his whole family wanted to come in, even Sharon.

I opened the door and realized that it was more complicated then I had gathered from the window. Mr. H had Mathew by the collar of his shirt, and everyone looked pissed, except Elizabeth who just looked frustrated.

"Are your parents home, Richie", Mr. H inquired.

"Yeah, uh…come in."

Elizabeth pushed past me and stormed up the stairs. Mathew attempted to join her but Mr. H kept that hold on his collar. That's some serious business, Mr. H treating a kid that way. He's never done that to me, or even Virgil that I'm aware of. This was going to be bad. I swallowed nervously as I let them come by, already hearing my father yelling…

"Uh…Dad", I called hesitantly, "Mr. Hawkins is hear to see you. I, uh…something about Mathew…"

I could barely announce this last part. I tried to read Virgil's face as he walked by, he was angry and…disappointed…maybe because Mathew is my responsibility…but, how could going to church go so wrong? I had to stop myself from trying to ask him what happened, another email in my head begging to be sent. To: Virgil, From: Richie, Re: What the hell happened, bro?

I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Dad was already sitting in the living room, and Mom came out from the kitchen. There actually weren't enough seats for everyone; we've never had to sit more than five people at a time. But it didn't look like anyone was about to sit down.

"What's going on?", Dad asked, noting how Mr. H had Mathew.

"Mr. Foley, we have to talk about young Mathew here."

"What about?", Dad asked.

"This little-", Sharon started to jump in, but Virgil smoothly put a hand on her mouth and she stopped.

Oh, this was going to be bad. Mathew, what could you have done, kid?

Mr. H took a breath.

"Mathew and Elizabeth are no longer welcome at our church", Mr. H announced, "Until they apologize to our pastor and the entire congregation", he continued, "Then maybe we'll discuss it."

Whoa…

"I'm not apologizing! We weren't just going to sit there while-"

"That's enough", Dad growled, "Mathew, go to your room."

Mr. H released him and he angrily stomped up the stairs.

"Thank you, Mr. Hawkins, I'll call his father and discuss this", Dad said.

"What, exactly, did they do?", Mom asked gently.

Sharon took a breath as if she was about to answer, but she looked at Virgil and stayed quite. Boy, I've never seen him so in control of her. She's the older sister, almost the mom, so seeing this...

"Apparently, their church has different values then we do. Rather hateful views that we don't support at all. You might…want to talk to their father about that. If they continue to view people the way they do…"

He shook his head sadly.

"Did they say something about…you know…"

This was my father attempting to ask if they had said something racist.

"No, actually…", Mr. H replied.

"Everything but that", Sharon hissed, "I almost wished they had just called us a bunch of-"

Once again Virgil silenced his sister. He was a little too calm, a little too quiet. I tried to meet his eyes, maybe I would send that email after all…but he wasn't looking at me.

"I think we better go", Mr. H said abruptly, "They are still welcome at the Community Center."

"For now", Sharon muttered under her breathe.

PART II:

My father attempted to get the full story from Elizabeth and Mathew to no avail. He tried talking to them for a full half hour, which is more than he ever tried with me. So finally their parents were called. Secretly I hoped this meant they would be returned, whatever the family situation, I no longer felt love or responsibility for them. Virgil was my blood more than Mathew ever would be. Since I wouldn't be informed of the decision, I would have to rely on visual clues, like Mathew packing.

When Mathew hadn't started packing by dinnertime I had to conclude that they were staying. Then I heard my parents talking in the kitchen…apparently my aunt had moved out, and my uncle was selling the home…some financial crisis is apparently tied to all this…so my cousins were now homeless. Damn. There was talk of a grandmother they could go to, but that didn't sound too likely. I'd watched another friend go through this process…they moved in with an aunt…but their Mom was dead and their Dad was in Mexico, and they were poor…it was a little different. Plus he was a nice guy, I wouldn't have minded living with him.

Damn…

I couldn't wait to go on patrol with Virgil, and talk to him about all this. There was no way to talk to him at all until then, I had no privacy to use the phone and I didn't even carry a shock box here, something we had debated but ultimately decided that Mathew finding out presented a greater danger than not being in constant communication.

Maybe I could just…go out for groceries and…

I risked casually going into the kitchen, interrupting my parent's discussion but pretending I hadn't heard anything. A quick glance of the refrigerator revealed that we were, in fact, dangerously low on milk. Can't have that with three teenagers in the house.

I didn't even have to say anything. All I did was pour a pitiful quarter cup of milk and stare wistfully at the empty gallon for about a second.

"Here, go buy some more milk, son", Dad said, handing me five dollars.

"Sure", I agreed, looking reluctant.

"Shouldn't we get powdered, honey?", my mom asked hesitantly.

Uh oh. I hadn't fully appreciated the financial impact these cousins were going to have on us.

"No son of mine is drinking powdered milk", Dad announced firmly.

Well, good, the man has principles. I left for the store, detouring, of course, to the gas station to get the shock box and talk to Virgil. I thought about just stopping by his house but wasn't sure that would be appropriate. Taken extra security measures that I wasn't followed or anything meant going through the alleys. Naturally this security measure placed me in greater danger over all, something I try not to think about too much.

Especially since I don't have a shock box or anything…

Damn…

Was it just me or was a cold wind picking up…

Was it just me or is everything getting silent…

Except for a dog howling…

Damn…

I stopped and carefully examined my surroundings.

I didn't see anything unusual. But I felt it. I felt another presence. I focused my mind, tuning into the presence that was watching me. It was someone I knew…someone I didn't like…not Ebon or Hotstreak…

'hello there Richie'

Ragtag! What?

I quickly broke my link with his mind, and instantly linked to Virgil.

'Virgil! Help!'

'Richie? What? Where are you?'

'Near the gas station! Help!'

'But if you're at the gas station how can I hear you?'

I didn't answer his question, as I abruptly ended the link to focus my mind on my immediate situation. I couldn't go to the gas station now, not with Ragtag watching me. It was bad enough I had mind-linked to Virgil, what if he was somehow able to sense that? I wasn't sure if his communicating in my head was from me linking with him or if he had his own telepathic powers. I didn't really know anything about Ragtag, except that he was mean and tough.

And scary…

I decided to simply leave. I backed out, watching the general area where I had sensed him even though I couldn't actually see him. I moved really slowly, careful not to trip on anything. The street wasn't that far.

I made it. Ragtag didn't come out, or say anything more to me. But knowing that he was alive and apparently had some kind of power gave me no sense of relief.

I walked down a few blocks to the corner store, realized that Virgil would be looking for me in a state of panic and reluctantly sent him another message.

'I'm in the store'

'What are you doing in there? I thought you were in danger! And, what is this we're doing anyway?'

'I'll tell you when you get here. Come as Virgil.'

I sort of "hung up" on him, and took my time getting the milk so I could meet him in the store, hoping that this way, if Ragtag was still watching, he wouldn't know that I had called Virgil here. It would look like Virgil was just getting food too.

But then again, dealing with Ragtag meant all rules were off. Maybe he already knew about us. Maybe he was planning to destroy us all. Or maybe he didn't really care about us at all.

Damn…

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_  
_

"_An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated."  
_-- **Madalyn Murray O'Hair** (_attributed: source unknown_)

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	6. Chapter V

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"_Mrs. O'Hair died horribly, a victim of the world she helped to shape. Without the Deity she fought so hard against, there is no right and wrong, increasingly people are ruled by their passions and humanity is a tragedy waiting to happen."  
_-- **Bill Murray**, statement on his website, exploiting even the deaths of his own mother, brother, and daughter, in his zeal to discredit atheists

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Part 1:

I bided my time in the cereal section, trying to ease my mind with the ingredient list of various chocolaty sugar coated cereals, and even going to far as figuring out what the actual recipe likely was, and the equipment used to process it, what the working conditions were probably like in the factories, and even going through the conditions for all the buyers, sellers, and creators of artificial flavoring. This kept about 80 of my mental capacity occupied, but 20 whirled away about Ragtag. Of that, 2 began exploring the theory that maybe my genius ability came from his touch…if not directly maybe he acted as a catalyst…

Virgil's highly anticipated presence interrupted my thoughts.

"Are you going to buy that?" he inquired.

"Huh? Oh, no, not these. I think I might know too much about them."

I set the generic marshmallow laden wheat puffs back on their shelf. Now my arms felt empty. I wanted to hug Virgil in the worst way, and if we'd been alone I totally would have. Just for a minute of comfort. After years of adolescence, I knew this feeling would pass soon enough, but the cereal box had been a decent substitute in the meantime. The milk is just going to be cold and awkward, no love there.

"So…uh, everything okay?" he inquired, knowing full well that it wasn't, but recognizing we couldn't very well talk about bang-babies, or even personal human stuff, here in the middle of the supermarket. There wasn't anyone else in the same aisle, but it was too small of a store to have much private conversation. Unless we did it telepathically. Which I really did not want to do and really wish I hadn't started doing in the first place.

"I ran into an old friend", I replied.

'Who?' came a telepathic question.

"Don't do that", I told him sharply, in real speak.

"Why not? You did it. It's kind of cool."

"It's just…look, I know I called you here and all, actually, I was on my way to the…phone booth to call you anyway."

"We got a lot to talk about", he agreed.

"I just don't know how…I have to get back home soon, my Dad's going to be wondering what took so long getting this milk."

"Well, you want to come spend the night?" he asked, "Just say you ran into me and that's why you're late."

"I wasn't sure that would be cool with your family, you know, after my cousins…"

He put an affectionate hand on my shoulder.

"Rich, you're always going to be cool with us. You should know that by now."

Somewhere deep in myself I knew that, but it's always nice to be confirmed.

"What'd they do, anyway?"

He sighed.

"We have a lot to talk about. Let's talk about this old friend first."

PART II:

After we left the store we walked down the street, which was empty enough for me to actually talk to Virgil.

"Ragtag."

"Huh?"

"Ragtag. It was Ragtag I ran into. In the alley, right down there."

Virgil almost stopped to look, but nervously glanced away. I felt a slight electrical vibration from him…almost like an electrical shudder. I shuddered also, remembering the brief confrontation with Ragtag that nearly killed Virgil.

"That guy…" he hissed, "I thought he was dead. He's the only person I've ever wanted to die. Even Hotstreak…at least he's just…he's nothing compared to that guy…"

He's eyes widened.

"Does he still have his powers? He could undo everything that the cure did…he could create a whole new race of bang babies like he tried to do with you. What if…"

"I don't know if he still has those powers. I didn't even see him. He spoke to me telepathically, the way you did in the store just now. I'm more worried about him knowing who we are."

"He knows who we are?"

"I don't know. Maybe. He just freaks me out."

"Yeah, me too", Virgil declared emphatically.

By now we were almost at my house, and our conversation deadened accordingly.

I presented my parents with the milk, and was summarily ordered to sit down for dinner, which apparently had been on hold for the milk. Virgil was greeted cordially enough but not invited to stay, probably for a variety of reasons. I decided in this atmosphere not to bother trying to leave with him, and instead made plans to hook up tomorrow.

PART III:

3:45 in the afternoon found me tearing across the schoolyard to the nearest alley, an extremely rare action for me even when I'm being chased by evil bang babies (I'm more of a hider, employing stealth over speed). Several friends of mine expressed amazement, but I didn't even take the time to offer them a courteous explanation. After suffering through that dinner, all night and then about 8 hours of school without getting to talk to Virgil about any of the things I needed to talk to him about, I wasn't going to waste another second. The experience was only matched by the one time I had been nine years old and ran home to catch an episode of Transformers. In a way, the sky was now my home, and the only place I could truly be free, except I had to change into someone else to be there.

How ironic, on a number of levels.

I flew to meet Virgil, as Static, finding him doing flips in the air.

"So how's Damien?" he asked coyly.

"Damien?"

"Your cousin."

"His name is Mathew", I replied.

Virgil shook his head.

"The Omen? Remember?"

It took a few seconds to bring up all the brain files about The Omen. I actually had watched it with Virgil when we were eleven years old. It hadn't been that interesting a movie to me, though he had been really scared.

"Oh, yeah…you're comparing Mathew to the Devil's son? That's harsh, bro."

"Did you even ask them what they did?" he asked, in a different tone.

"No, not directly. I don't really talk to them much. My Mom mentioned over dinner that their Mom would come take them to their church on Sunday from now on."

"Yeah, what church is that?"

"I don't know. It's in Oakdale, I think."

"Richie, you've been to my church. You know what we're about. We're about love… You get that much, don't you?"

He paused to check.

"Yeah, I get that", I assured him, as he seemed to need the affirmation before he would continue.

"They're all about hate. I heard of churches like that, but to see it…to see young people like them so quick to judge people. To get up and disrespect the pastor in the middle of his sermon…Mathew's like, thirteen isn't he?"

"Just turned fourteen", I corrected.

"Still in grade school, right? I saw Elizabeth in the halls today. Hanging out with about half the football team. Seems like a nice girl. She doesn't have any problem making friends. She didn't condemn any of them to hell and some of them probably deserve it."

"They condemned you to Hell? For what?"

"The sermon was on Peace and Justice. Loving our neighbors. Mathew said we're all liars, fools, and unless we threw the Pastor out we we're all going to hell. Then he started reciting from the bible, not the good stuff but the parts you're suppose to balance. He starts shouting '_Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother_…',on and on. Come to think of it, that's from Mathew…10:34-35…maybe that's the only part of the bible he reads…" 

And I had to share a room with that kid.

"And Elizabeth?"

"She didn't say nothing. But she didn't stop him either. I even asked her to."

"She refused?"

"Said he was right."

I slowly let out some air, feeling the pain my friend must have felt, all of them must have felt. And Virgil's not the only one of my friends who goes to that church, it's the main one in Dakota, which means a lot of people now know that my cousins are hateful little monsters. Which reflects rather badly on me.

And yet apparently Elizabeth is having no trouble making friends. I saw her at lunch myself sitting at the popular people table, and she only transferred in this mourning.

"I'm sorry V", I told him.

"Yeah, you're not the one that needs to apologize. You just, no offense man, but you got a whack family."

He said that with such sincerity, I had to smile.

"Least I got you for a brother."

He smiled back at me, putting an arm around me.

"You lucked out", he agreed, then turning the arm sling into a hug.

I love Kodak moments like this, although it would be absolutely mortifying if a picture of Static hugging Gear, even in a 'you're my best friend' way like this, were to appear on the five o'clock news.

"Enough about our rotten cousins", he said, "let's talk about something else."

"Ragtag?", I suggested, although I was all out of things to say about him. My next suggestion was the telepathy, but that might be a big long discussion I didn't feel the patience for at the moment.

He scrawled a little.

"No. Actually, I wanted to tell you about me and Daisy."

His voice literally squeaked at "Daisy". Dude was so adorable sometimes.

"Yeah?"

"I think Daisy and I are going to-going to take our relationship to the next level"

He almost squeaked in the middle of that profound announcement.

"Well…uh, congratulations."

He moved into a sitting position on his flyer.

"It's just I'm a little…you know, nervous…I mean…what if I…what if it…"

"I'm sure you'll be fine", I said, hoping that would be enough to assure him.

"Adam said the same thing. But he doesn't have anything to worry about, with powers like that."

An awkward silence ensued. Thinking about Adam that way was bad enough, but then when you remembered that Sharon was his girlfriend…

Fortunately my mask obscured my face enough that he couldn't tell I was blushing. And it was hard to tell if he was blushing with or without his mask. But his eyes betrayed him.

"Well, you're powers are pretty good too", I told him, "You know people buy little voltage boxes to…uh, enhance things."

"Then I'd have to tell her I'm Static."

"Don't you have to anyway?"

I wasn't too worried about Daisy knowing. Especially in a context like this.

"I guess so, yeah. But what if she doesn't like being shocked?"

"Then don't do it", I replied.

"What if I can't help it? Jeez, what if…"

"Bro, you'll be fine", I stated, "Look, anybody would be lucky to be with you without your powers, but with them…it'll be fantastic, okay? Fucking fantastic! I would trade places with her in a heartbeat-"

A bad awkward silence followed that. I made a useless gesture of covering my mouth. His eyes were at least as wide as they were at the whole 'I'm not religious' conversation.

"I mean", I said, trying to recover, "From a purely objective standpoint, having sex with someone with electrical powers would be awesome. And, if we add to that my powers, with my knowledge of the body and all, it would be really awesome. It was just an idea, you know, I can't help thinking about things."

My deeper, formal sounding voice probably made my true thoughts known more than the accidental outburst. Maybe I should have just not said anything more.

"We were talking about me and Daisy", he stated.

"Yeah, right." I agreed.

"Before that we were talking about being brothers."

"Yep", I agreed.

Tears were starting to build up. I know what he's going to say…

"You've been a brother to me for as long as I can remember, and a friend. I don't look at brothers and friends that way."

He squeaked here too, but this time it wasn't adorable.

"It was just…I was just trying to…" I offered helplessly.

"I didn't even know you…went that way. Especially the way you talk about Shenice, I thought…"

"Well, what do you want? I'm Seventeen. I think about a lot of people. But you're my best friend and I…"

He tried to reach out to hug me again, but I flew away.

"Richie, let's talk about this."

"I got to go", I said, tearing away as quickly as I had flown up there not half an hour before.

Great, now my sky home is as bad as my family home.

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"_Could it be brought home to people that there is no absolute standard in morality, they would perhaps be somewhat more tolerant in their judgments, and more apt to listen to the voice of reason._"  
-- **Edward A. Westermarck**, not even considering the slanderous notion that humans, without terse commandments from a (specific) totem-god, immediately lapse into debauchery and merderous lawlessness, in _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_ (1906), quoted from Laird Wilcox, ed., "The Degeneration of Belief"

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	7. Chapter VI

A/N: Welcome. Glad you all are digging this story. The next few chapters should flow a little better now.

I feel duty bound to warn you all that, in this chapter, and for future plot development, it is revealed that Richie…owns a magazine. Prepare yourselves accordingly.

Course, if the Rubberband-man (Adam) comment didn't earn a mention from anyone, you all can probebly take anything.

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"_Not being religious is similar to any other shortsighted, risky and impulsive behavior that some men __--__ primarily young males __--__ engage in, such as assault, robbery, burglary, murder and rape."  
_-- **Rodney Stark**, inverting the definition by seeing religion as a normal part of a healthy human outlook rather than the aberrant addition or appendix to human nature that it is (or, If most victims ate eggs within two days of a car crash, is there a link between eggs and auto fatalities?), as quoted in University of Washington Alumni, "Why are men less religious? It may be form of risk-taking, impulsivity just as criminal behavior is: Inherent Traits Make Men Less Religious (and More Criminal) Says Prof" (January, 2003) ††

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Going back to the alley, getting changed, and walking home…I know I did these things because I am back in "normal" clothes, but I remember none of it. Vaguely I wonder if I even had paid attention to being seen or followed, but my mind quickly dismisses that. Either I was seen and my secrets blown, or I was not. No sense thinking any more about it, not when there's so much more to think about.

Or, more to the point, something to not think about.

Filling my head with thoughts is almost impossible. But I was determined not to leave one shred able to think about Virgil. And the only way I know to do that was to think about Shenice.

Yeah I like Shenice. I like Shenice a lot. But I don't see Shenice as much as I see…the person I'm not thinking about right now. I hardly ever see her. She goes to our school, but we don't share any classes, not even lunch. After the cure was released, she stopped being She-bang even though it didn't affect her abilities at all. She got bored just fighting crime, and since she doesn't fly like Static and me it wasn't relaxing to her. She tried out for the cheerleading squad but they wouldn't take her, even though she's got incredible talent for it. So instead she took up Volley Ball, of all things.

She never calls me. Course, I don't call her either.

If she liked me she would say so. I know her that well. Maybe if we were around each other a little more, something would develop.

But that doesn't stop me from thinking about her. It true, I'm seventeen, and I think about a lot of people. Actually, maybe that's not so true. I think about sex a lot but only with a few people, mainly the person I'm not thinking about right now and Shenice. When I was younger I thought about Sharon a lot, but I grew out of that. Especially when I started staying over there more, and she became like a sister to me. Course, that didn't stop me from developing feelings for my, uh, brother there…

Can't I go five seconds with out thinking about him?

I'm going to have to try a little harder with Shenice.

Shenice, Shenice, Shenice.

I like Shenice. Yes I do.

Which means I must be bisexual.

Course to be any-sexual you have to actually have sex with someone.

I'm starting to think there's something wrong with me. I mean, lots of people are late bloomers but I haven't had any kind of a dating relationship at all. And it would solve so many problems. Like, for instance, I wouldn't be thinking about my "friend and brother" that way if I had an actual relationship.

And I wouldn't have invested in a copy of 'Dreads in Beds', despite great risk from my parents ever seeing it-

Oh no

A cold sensation washes over me as I realize that, in meticulously removing all things related to Static and Gear from my room, I'd completely forgotten to remove all things personally related to Richie. I only look at it maybe once every couple months, and otherwise I don't think about it at all.

Well, hardly at all, anyway…

I'm a block away from home now. It's all I can do not to go tearing, for the third time today, up to my room to check on it, and make quick plans for disposal. I suppose I'll have to throw it away in some anonymous dumpster, a shame, really, considering how well it's served me. But maybe some old homeless guy can have fun with it…

Maybe Ragtag will find it. I don't know whether that's funny or scary.

Anyway, first things first. Come in door, greet parents in a normal fashion, and then go up to room. Hopefully Mathew's not there already.

Hopefully he hasn't already taken advantage of being left alone in my room to go through everything making sure I'm not into gay black porn. He's only been here for two and a half days now. Usually you would wait until the third day or so before ransacking your cousin's personal possessions…right?

Now I am very hot, my hands so sweaty I have trouble turning the doorknob. But when I did I was rewarded with an empty bedroom. Quickly I closed the door and approached the mattress corner in question, preparing my bag for quick relocation.

My hand goes from hot to cold in about a second as it feels a single sheet of paper under the mattress.

I pull it out.

Dear Richie:

I have something better for you to look at.

Please open your heart to Jesus. I want to save you. You're my cousin and I love you.

Mathew

Oh crap…

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"_No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid... Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings."_  
-- **George Orwell**, "Reflections on Gandhi," in _Shooting an Elephant_ (1950), quoted from James A. Haught, ed., _2000 Years of Disbelief_

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	8. Chapter VII

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"_It would be good for religion if many books that seem useful were destroyed. When there were not so many books and not so many arguments and disputes, religion grew more quickly than it has since."_  
-- Girolamo Savonarola, opposing the revival of human scholarship by urging the destruction of collections of classic literature, in Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1960), p. 336, quoted from Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History

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PART I:

Right then…

I'll just have to find it.

Maybe he's destroyed it, in which case, no magazine, no problem. But…if I actually think about him, analyze his behavior… he hasn't destroyed it. He would hold onto it. He would know it's a very powerful tool against me, because if my Dad ever saw that…

Now my hearts pounding. I'm not sure what he would do. And I'm not sure Mathew understands how seriously bad that could get.

My mind starts playing out a nightmarish scenario of being literally kicked out of the house. Dad hasn't actually hit me since I was nine, and even then he was never beyond the accepted realm. But situations like this…

My butt panged with future bruises. I shook my head to clear the vision, but the phantom pain lingered.

In a panicky second, I almost try to go into Mathew's head, and see if I could read his mind and find out where he put it.

I shake my head again.

I'm going to do this the old fashioned way. No mind reading. Just plain old detective work

Go look in his side of his room for it. It's a small, uncluttered room. This should be easy.

I tear through the desk drawers. There's a lot of paper, but nothing that could hide the magazine.

Maybe he put it under his own mattress…

No. Nothing.

Gee, Mathew sure makes his bed neatly. I make my own bed, but just by throwing the cover back on and placing the pillow at the head. His is all tucked up like a hotel bed. This kid is whack.

Wait…

My mom had made the bed up with an old bed set, the cover was orange and blue striped, the sheets were…I don't remember, but they weren't white. Now, it's all white. The pillowcase, everything.

He switched the sheets…

In fact he must have bought his own set with him, because these aren't ours. He had one suitcase, and half of it must have been his own sheet set. What kind of kid packs his whole life into one suitcase and leaves room for a sheet set? Why would he be that obsessed with what sheets were on the bed?

My mind brings up some vague information about myths regarding white sheets, supposedly demons could get to you if you slept under anything else, they would poke you through the color black or something weird. If you're a virgin you're suppose to have white sheets…but I thought that was only for girls.

This kid is beyond whack…

I got to find that magazine before this gets any…

"Looking for something?", Mathew announces.

"You know I am", I reply, turning to face him, "And it's not Jesus."

Maybe I shouldn't be sarcastic when dealing with somebody I just classified as whack, but the comment escaped me before I could contain it. I mentally snap myself into negotiation mode, and start psychoanalyzing my young cousin for a strategy to get out of this.

He comes in and closes the door.

"I just wanted to get your attention."

I look him in the eyes, not totally intimidating but focused.

"Here. Have it."

This successfully unnerves him a little.

"Richie, I expected to find some kind of porn. I know its something that young men turn too, they get pressured into. And I was just going to tell you that exploiting women like that is wrong."

"I agree", I said.

"But when I saw that…I knew you really needed help. Because no one in their right mind would want to look at that. I can't pretend I didn't see that."

"You could have not looked for it in the first place", I pointed out.

"Then I wouldn't be doing my job."

"You're getting paid to go through my stuff?"

He rolls his eyes.

"No Richie. I'm a servant of the Lord. It's my job to reach out to people like you, people who would turn to…to…something so twisted."

"It's not twisted. Those people are very beautiful."

"So are white girls."

The temperature of the room dropped about fifty degrees.

"I mean, fully clothed girls that you have a real relationship with.", he added, "Ones that you're actually going to marry. They're beautiful."

I let the awkward silence sink in a little.

"Look, I was going to destroy it anyway", I tell him, deciding that was the best approach to ending this clash. I didn't have to tell him why; I could let him believe I was destroying it for him.

"You were?"

"Yes. We can destroy it together, if you like."

I almost had him…then I lost him.

"You'll just get a new one", he replied.

"Not while I'm living with you."

"Don't you understand everything in that magazine will send you to hell?"

There are five perfect retorts to that, but they are all sarcastic and would degenerate the discussion into a fight, especially because his tone had verged on yelling. I don't want that. As much as I want to kill him, if not for this than for what he did to Virgil (alas,Virgil), I have to control myself.

Besides, I don't actually want to kill him. He's my cousin, and he's only fourteen, and he's trying to be helpful. My mind turns to using this empathy to my advantage, to negotiate a neutral end.

But it goes overboard with the empathy. I didn't even notice it go, but suddenly I am flooded with information about him.

His father lost his job. He'd lost it months ago. Maybe even longer, but Mathew only knew for months.

Their family made a conscious decision to split up. To have us take in him and Elizabeth, my uncle was going to check out somewhere to move to…their pastor, the one that taught him try and save teenage boys using a confrontation around porn, had suggested several communities to try. His mother was staying with one of her relatives in Oaktown.

Now it made sense, at least why we had them, why they sold the house…

Mathew and Elizabeth didn't like us.

This thought hit me like a rock.

They didn't love us. They didn't even like us.

I mentally switched off our link, such as it was.

We were staring at each other. He was waiting for me to make my move. There was no indication he had felt me accessing his mind.

"Just give it back to me, and let me destroy it."

"You just don't want your parents to see it. Because then they'll see you're wickedness. And God will act through them. That's what you're afraid of."

I happened to spot the corner of the magazine sticking out of my tuxedo jacket. Clever.

He must have seen in my eyes that I had found it, for he moved protectively in front of it, even as my fist came in contact with his face.

Now, after all these years of being on the receiving end, Francis makes sense. Nothing could feel better than hurting a hateful little cousin after a shitty day like mine, and if I was having a really shitty life like him I could defiantly take it to just beating the shit out of everyone.

In fact I could just beat the shit out of Mathew.

But instead I use the advantage to grab my magazine, hoping to get it into my backpack and get out the door.

He recovered too quickly and tried to grab it from me.

"I'm not afraid of you!", he yelled.

"You don't have to be! Just leave me and my stuff alone!"

First we tug-a-warred, then I went down to one hand as I pulled the other into a fist in preparation for another, harder hit. It wouldn't have even occurred to think of what my parents would say if my Mom hadn't walked in on us.

"Boys? What's going on here?"

"Richie has porn!", my darling little cousin blurted out, yanking the magazine out of my one hand and tossing it to her.

I decided not to confirm or deny that, but go with a totally different argument.

"Mom I can't share a room with him! I need to move now!"

Both of us lunged for each other then, disregarding her standing there. Our hands locked, and squeezed. His fingernails dug into my skin, and he was probably winning until Mom managed to get between us and pull him away.

"Mathew, go sit on your bed", she ordered.

He complied.

"Richie, We'll see if we can move you into the basement, okay, honey?"

"Yeah, that'll be fine", I said, examining the fingernail marks he left in my hand, "In fact, I'll go start cleaning it up now."

I stomped out of there. For the first ten minutes my "cleaning" consisted of throwing boxes around and breaking a few things. Fortunately the basement is carpeted so it wasn't too noisy.

I then set about actually cleaning and organizing. I'd been in the same room since I was born, and although I was planning on moving as soon as a graduated in a few months anyway, the prospect of a little move now was very gratifying.

And it's very helpful to have a mind that can calculate furniture arrangements and aesthetics instantly.

By that evening I had completely moved into the basement, and it felt so much freer. Not only did my Dad not object, he helped me move my bed down, saying something about how kids need their own space. I abandoned everything else upstairs to Mathew, deciding to make do with the forgotten nightstands and bookshelves. Creating a workable closet was a challenge, I finally used the overhead pipes for hanging and temporarily laid everything else out on a coffee table.

The only problem was I now had to go up two flights of stairs to get to the bathroom, but that was workable.

A sense of peace I had not felt in…perhaps as long as five years settled over me as I crawled into bed. I closed my eyes and my mind was filled with more and better layouts for my new room, and suggestions for low-price additions. Art, it needed some art on the walls…

And that's when I remembered Mom had my magazine.

Needless to say it was a very, very, very long night for me.

PART II:

As soon as the clock hit 6:00 AM I got all dressed and got my things together for school.

This was going to have to be smooth. Mom is usually in the kitchen by now, making breakfast. I need to ask her casually about it, and then make plans to retrieve it when Dad comes down, also avoiding my cousins in the course of it. Then I need to get the fuck out of dodge, as they say, and destroy it on my way to school.

Deep breathe…

'If he had seen it, you would know', I assure myself, 'he would have dragged you out of bed in the middle of the night or something.'

I approached the kitchen ready to hastily greet Mom and make the casual inquiry about my magazine.

My voice died in my throat.

Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in a robe, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee.

My magazine sat directly in front of him on the table.

Since I couldn't back out now, and unsure of what was going to happen, I figured I better have some caffeine in me. So I poured a cup for myself.

"This yours?" he asked gruffly, lowering the newspaper slightly to gesture at the magazine.

"Uh…it's not what you think-"

God, my voice squeaks the same way Virgil does sometimes, except he does it when he's happy, and I do it when I'm scared.

"It's alright son."

"I…it…what?"

"Your mother and I just had our best night in over fifteen years. So, there must be something to it."

He raised the newspaper back up, leaving me effectively alone with the thoughts of my parents...

I swallowed about half a cup of scalding hot coffee just to distract myself from utter mortification. Then I got the fuck out of dodge, headed to school, but I left the magazine there. I couldn't even touch it now.

At least this day seemed off to a more promising start than yesterday. I mean, what could possibly top this?

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"_Religious bodies do not want people to "be good," they want them to behave, and to this end what is actually "good," humane and healthful behavior is a liability."_  
-- **Richard G. Rieben**, _Ethics for Earthlings_ (2000), p. 25 ††

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	9. Chapter VIII

The Moral of the Story – Chapter VIII – Red Turtle

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"_A good butt-whipping and then a prayer is a wonderful remedy." -- _**Fob James**, describing his solution to the juvenile crime problem to a November, 1996, meeting of ministers, Birmingham News/Post Herald, Saturday, November 9, 1996, quoted from AANEWS for February 6, 1997 and elsewhere

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PART I:

For the first time in about eight years, I walked to school alone. I'm not sure if Virgil would still come by this mourning, and if he did whether I was making things worse between us by not being there. My mind then split into two directions, one tried to propose a quick, harmless mind-reading, the other wondered if Dad would be nicer to Virgil now that he had…

To squash both those thoughts required something interesting, innocent, and with a vast amount information for me to keep busy with.

I am now thinking about nothing but kittens.

PART II:

By the time I reached school I was in pretty good spirits. Kittens will do that to you.

I hung out in the front yard with roughly twenty minutes still. More kittens. Good thing there's like a million books written about them.

Five minutes later Elizabeth came up to me.

"Richie."

"Yeah."

"I heard about you and Mathew."

"From me or from Mathew?", I asked rhetorically, hoping she would pick up on the fact that she likely had only one-side of the story.

"He's my brother. I have to stick up for him he's the only family I have."

"Uh, I'm your cousin", I pointed out.

"You know what I mean", she replied.

There was an awkward silence.

"I saw the magazine", she said.

I shrugged. So every member of my family now knew that I had gay, black porn. At least they didn't know I was Gear.

More silence. My heart wasn't really in this conversation.

"Are you going to repent?", she asked.

"Well…no."

"You'll be sorry."

"Okay."

She left, taking the stifling cloud of righteousness with her.

I watched her approach a group of popular kids, the jocks, the cheerleaders, and high society of the Sophmore class, more well known and trendy than most Seniors (except for the equivalent of that click in the Senior Class). They were all smiles, these kids. At least out here in the yard they were. When they had fights, they were private events, usually taking place in the bathroom.

I wonder what they thought about…it couldn't hurt to take a little peak…

One of them, a burly guy I took gym with, was thinking about beating me up. I knew I wasn't just being egotistical, they really do think about beating me up all the time.

One of the girls had a lot of thought devotion to what flavor gum to buy from the vending machines. Oh, and she doesn't like me either. But she considers Elizabeth to be a friend, and to be cool, unlike me, whom she wouldn't date in a million years.

It must be because they're all talking to Elizabeth, and with her being my cousin they were all thinking about me by association, but the next two guys were also entertaining thoughts of beating me up, in slightly different fashions. I didn't realize how much people hate me, people I don't even know.

The smart person would have stopped there. The person who was smart in a different fashion, I suppose.

The last guy was not thinking about me specifically. He was reliving the beat down he gave someone. He'd caught a couple guys trying to steal his car. A couple black guys. One got away. The other didn't. The other had curled into a ball trying to avoid him, and while he kicked him he thought, 'This'll teach them. This'll teach them good.'. He apparently found this so exciting it was a loop in his head, all he was thinking about. And then he thought, I really need to post this the internet-

"Hi Richie", my best friend greeted, jarring me free of this nightmare.

"Virgil.", I acknowledged shakily with an affectionate grip of his arm, a purely-friend grip as I was not thinking about sex at the moment.

I almost told him what I knew, for a second I thought he should know, he has to know, he should transfer out of here, get away from these asshole before they come for him next, before someone tries to teach him a lesson.

For a minute I forgot we were the superheroes. We actually set the terms in this city. And we're not going anywhere. If he was going to run from racism he would have run a long time ago.

"You alright?", he asked. His eyes specified about yesterday, about our little discussion that broke my heart.

"Yeah. Just had a rough morning."

"Nothing like forty minutes of Advanced Physics to cure what ails you."

I smiled. We shared the first class, and we both enjoyed it immensely. I've been entertaining the notion of becoming a physics teacher for almost a year, and this class really helped solidify it. It was as good a direction in life as any, plus no one ever suspects their physics teacher of being a superhero.

We headed into school together, and I started to pick up my good mood where I had left it before Elizabeth came by. Virgil's good spirits always helped me, especially now when our friendship seemed so rocky. A small part of me wanted to believe that if he was still being my friend even knowing how I felt, that meant that maybe there was a chance for us. We're still young, after all.

A bigger part of me realized why Virgil was in such good spirits.

"Did you-"

He turned and smiled. He suddenly looked very mature.

"Yep."

The best-friend who must know about incredible event in best friends' life won out over the jealous, angsty teenager.

"And? Was it-"

"Incredible."

"Awesome."

"Yep."

There wasn't much more to say on the subject, at least not which could be discussed in school now that we were in class. It was probably just as well. I was truly happy for him, but truly a bit sad for myself. I really needed to start thinking about someone else.

PART III:

Advanced physics was great, as usual. After that, Virgil and I are split up until forth period Gym.

Gym was always hard for me. It is the one class where my super-brain doesn't help me at all, unless the teacher is willing to accept a 10-page report on the history of free-style swimming in lue of actually swimming (which they never are).

But it's also the time I get to see Virgil mostly naked. And be mostly naked myself at the same time, which can be good or bad, depending.

Because of our talk yesterday, I wasn't sure what was going to happen now. Sure we'd been cool this mourning, but were we still cool enough to be nearly naked together?

I figured I'd go to our regular place and maybe spare him any embarrassment by getting changed first and going on to the gym. I was just pulling my gym shirt on when he entered and took his usually position near me, assuring me that we were, in fact, still cool enough to be nearly naked together.

But I still felt anxious. Like a large dark shadow was descending over me…

Wait...there is a large dark shadow descending over me…

Oh, shit!

Virgil saw the look on my face and spun around just in time to be hit in the stomach by one of several bigger guys zeroing in on me.

Although these are normal humans, some of them classmates I knew by name, they were physically bigger than us, Virgil and I could not use our powers in this situation, and to them we were now less than human. They definitely had it in for us. For me, actually. They were all but stepping over him. But why?

"We've come for you, Foley the Faggot" said the burly guy who this mourning had been talking to my cousin and thinking about beating me up.

I didn't think he'd actually do it! Now I realized they weren't thinking about beating me up while talking to Elizabeth; they were talking to Elizabeth about beating me up.

And that one guy who was thinking about kicking the shit out of a black kid while people talked about beating me up…now that took frightening dimensions. It's about teaching me a lesson, not Virgil.

Disbelief was quickly smacked out of me. Now everything was all wavy, as if the world was a TV I was trying to adjust the antenna on.

By now I had gotten my arms up to defend myself, and it helped that they were so big and the corner I'd been shoved into so narrow that only one or two could hit me at a time. And they were hitting. Hard.

It progressed beyond the level of any beat-down I'd ever been in. In fact I haven't been beaten up that much, quite a bit in seventh grade but high-school was mostly smooth. Virgil was always the one getting beaten up, not me.

My eyesight adjusted enough that I could see past the bodies surrounding me to look for help. The room was empty. Everyone else had run. That made me angrier than this beating.

Actually, it was not empty. Movement on the ground nearby alerted me to Virgil's presence. Movement and bright light from his eyes.

The lockers began swinging open, and then coming out from the walls and slamming into the guys around me.

"No! Stop!", I tried to yell at him, "They'll find out you're Static!"

But I couldn't actually yell. One of them had decided to be original in his tactics; instead of punching he had grabbed my neck and choked me. My rationality assured me that he wouldn't be able to hold onto me long enough to kill me, with the lockers flying around and Virgil right there, and probably some teachers coming soon. Don't worry, it will all be over soon…just a little painful, but you'll live…

Fortunately the commotion was great enough that all of them ran off, their tactics would indicate that they just wanted a quick and vicious beat down, and the lockers provided the break they needed to leave. They probably didn't even think to connect Virgil to it. The lockers almost looked like they were just falling out of the walls, which is possible given all the vibrations they were causing and the shotty construction of the school.

"Richie", Virgil called.

I didn't answer. Couldn't. My lungs refused to take in more air than was minimally necessary to keep me alive. I thought about how, if I was a dog, I could wag my tail in response, since any vocal communication was out of the question.

Than again, had I been a dog, they probably would have stepped on my tail for good measure.

But, on the other hand, I would have been able to bite them.

Unless I was some stupid little poodle-

"Richie? Answer me?"

Oh, my eyes are closed. That's probably worrying him. I should really open them.

The pain was starting to come. Slowly. Now quickly. Shit! My chest really hurt, apparently my arms didn't do as good a job blocking as I thought. They also hurt badly. Not bad enough to be broken, I happen to know too well what that feels like, but bad.

"HELP!" Virgil yelled, "Help, anybody! We need an ambulance! We need-"

Ambulance…hospital…police report…

The fuzz dissolves, replaced with humiliation. I don't like hospitals or police, and my parents had a terrible time of it when I'd been shot, I didn't want a whole bunch of worry and lecture to come down on me now.

I jumped up and managed to put my hand over his mouth.

"No, Virgil, shut up!" I order, my voice starts of almost frog-like but I force it to work.

I hold it there a minute until I'm sure he's not going to shout again.

"Look, just get me out of here. Take me home, whatever. Just don't let anyone find out about this."

"But—"

I put the hand back over his mouth.

"Obviously I can move. I'm okay. Or you can take me to the hospital later, if I'm not."

The door leading to the gym upstairs banged against a scattered locker, keeping it from being open. The other door to the hallway, where they had all run out of, appears quiet for now.

"Okay, Rich", he answers, from under my hand, which is shaking too violently to muffle him anyway.

He lets me lean on him to walk. At this point the pain cumulates in my head, and it's all I can do to walk one step at a time to get out of here.

We make it out the door to the hallway, which is deserted. All the classes have started by now, and all the doors are locked. I'm surprised no students have gathered from the noise, but I guess anyone curious enough would have gone through the gym, to avoid running into those monsters. But, I don't think we can actually make it out of the school in this condition. Some teacher is going to see us, ask questions and then have to involve the police, who also ask questions…

A new plan is needed. Must think, must think, must think…

"Let's go in here", Virgil whispers, pulling me gently into a bathroom. Too late I see the "women's" sign on it, but I'm too weak to protest.

Fortunately there is no one else in the bathroom. He guides me over to the sinks and I lean against the wall.

"What if someone comes in?" I ask wearily.

He points his finger at the door and locks it.

"There. Okay."

He focuses for a moment, and then starts gathering paper towels and running cold water. Cold water…there's a good idea…

"Here", he says, offering me a drink of cold water from his hands. This is really nice, because right now I can't even conceive of the effort it would take to drink from my own hands.

He goes through his pants a second and produces a couple of aspirin. Long ago we adapted the practice of carrying pain reliever on us, of course, mine is in my bag, which is still in the locker room. He gives me the pills and another hand-cup of water, and then starts applying a cold wet paper towel to a nasty cut on my left arm.

The aspirin doesn't relieve all the pain, but it helps immensely. I'm able to take stock of my body better. And his. He's trembling as much as I am, I feel it from the way he holds my arm. I also feel the electricity. Usually touching him involves some form of low-watt buzz, but this, whatever he was doing, made my whole body tingle, a sensation mostly lost from all the pain, but for the top of my head, where my hair responded to the static.

"Are you okay?" I ask gently, "Didn't they hit you?"

"I'm fine", he says.

Our eyes meet. The electric buzz increases. So does my heartbeat.

I could kiss him. Right here and now.

'Virgil' I thought to him, in the perfect pitch, conveying what I felt happening between us, without scaring him.

'Richie…' he answered mentally.

I could really do this. I leaned forward, prepared to do it quick, and then see what happens from there.

"Virgil! Richie! Are you in there?" a girl called from outside the door.

He pulled back sharply, turning a full kiss into a brush on his shoulder. He took the static electricity away too, retracted it back into his body and I now felt nothing but pain and the coldness of the bathroom.

"Shenice?"

"Yeah. Let me in!"

We took another look at each other, but the spell was broken. We were never, never going to be in this position again.

"Sorry Richie", he said, patting me very gently on the shoulder. Then he pointed at the door and let Shenice in.

I'm not totally sure what he was apologizing for, for me not getting to kiss him or the fact that he was never going to let me kiss him.

"Someone told me a bunch of guys had jumped you in the gym, so I got a bathroom pass and went looking for you", Shenice explained breathlessly as she approached us.

Her concern touched me; I just wish she could have waited another…hour or two.

She pushed past Virgil, still stunned from the whole fight and from what almost happened between us, and took over care of my arm.

"I got some bandages with me. Here, you should lie on the floor, that'll be better."

She pulled me to the floor and started taking out various medical supplies. I did feel a little more comfortable lying down, I was less dizzy and the tiles were oddly comforting against my skin. If only it smelled better down here.

"What do you need me to do?" Virgil offered, as she applied a cold wet cloth to the back of my neck.

"Actually, I think I can handle it from here", Shenice replies, "Maybe you should go."

"Go? What? But he needs help-"

"And I'm going to help him."

Silence followed. Then Virgil turned and left. I heard the door lock as he closed it.

Then there was a kiss. Not the electrifying one I was about to have. A dreamy one.

"Shenice…I…didn't…know…you…liked…me…"

"That's because you're dumb."

Second kiss.

(A/N: Unfortunately, there is no way to describe the events that followed in a PG-13 manner, so you'll just have to use your alls imaginations, which ironically will almost certainly be rated NC-17 anyway.)

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"_Religion is not a nice thing. It is potentially a very dangerous thing because it involves a heady complex of emotions, desires, yearnings and fears."  
_-- Karen Armstrong, in an interview in The San Francisco Chronicle's offices, quoted in (Chronicle Religion Writer) Don Lattin, "Televangelist, Fundamentalists believe their strict morality is the only answer" (September 23, 2001)

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Afraid I can't let you all leave with out saying something about New Orleans. The needless loss of life and culture to our world is maddening. See my profile for the complete homily, including more quotes from both sides.

Now please review. (the story, not the profile)


	10. Chapter IX

The Moral of the Story

By: Red Turtle

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_What is so great about making a pledge to sexual abstinence?__  
You experience a great freedom when you practice abstinence until marriage. Along with this freedom you will enjoy several benefits! _

_You are 100 guaranteed that you won't get pregnant. _

_It's a sure thing that you will stay STD-free!_

_You will be spared much emotional pain and heartache._

_God will provide a way out from temptation 100 of the time. _

_You will have every opportunity to fulfill your dreams._

_If you get married one day, you can present yourself pure to your mate._

_You will be honoring God with your body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit._

_Teen Absinstence-only program funded by the government, __http/ 2005_

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**(Out of respect for Richie and Shenice's privacy, we shall fast-forward about 24 hours, to the next afternoon.)**

"You doing okay, Richie?", Static asked, for about the hundredth time today, although to be fair my mind wasn't focused on controlling my skates, causing me to periodically lose altitude, and that probably warranted some concern on his part.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm better than fine", I replied, also for the hundredth time today. I had not yet told him why I was so fine.

"Why do you keep saying that? How are you better than fine? I'm surprised you made it to school today. Mr. Thomas even took pity on you. And look how you're flying. We really should take you to the hospital Richie; if we go as Static and Gear they won't know your identity."

I bit my lip. Going to the hospital had crossed my mind a few times, but I'd been able to use Backpack to determine that I didn't have a concussion or anything life-threatening. Aspirin took care of most of the body pain; the only thing still bothering me was the pounding headache.

I wanted to forget that any of this had happened at all, except of course the Shenice part. Being in a hospital would confirm everything bad about this whole experience, for me and for Virgil. I didn't want to feed his rage, which I could see building again. I hadn't confronted him yet about the fact that every computer at the school simultaneously exploded yesterday, right about the time me and Shenice were hooking up. I was hoping to just put this all behind us.

"It's not anything we didn't go through in Junior High", I reminded him.

My attempt to dismiss the seriousness of the situation backfired. His eyes became pure light.

"It's way different. I'm a fucking superhero, and we're not in fucking junior high. What good would these fucking powers be if I can't stop my fucking friends from being fucking beat up right fucking in front of me!"

Blinking back tears, he suddenly shot a powerful bolt of electricity into the air, causing me to spin out of control for a second from the residual current. But I was more affected by the gratuitous use of the word 'fucking' from someone who almost never swore in his entire life.

I gingerly took his arm, receiving a literal static shock, but not enough to hurt me.

"V, calm down. It's really okay-"

"No, it's really not. If it happens again…that's it. The whole world is going to know who I am when I get through with them."

His fist glowed dangerously.

"The whole world almost did find out. First you fly lockers into them, then you shorted out the whole school. Anyone paying attention would connect that to Static. Virgil, it's not worth throwing our lives away for."

His eyes narrowed in anger.

"I didn't mean to do that. It just happened. After Shenice kicked me out…I couldn't stop it, I just started popping all the light bulbs and then…"

As if reliving the experience, he released a wave of electricity on some street lights below, exploding them all and causing civilians to run for safety.

"Hey! Virgil!" I yelled, grabbing his fists.

He took a deep breath.

"Sorry."

"You know, normal teenagers use a punching bag. You should try it", I suggested.

We've had this discussion with his before, a lose temper and incredible electrical powers did not mix well.

"I know, Rich", he replied, a little calmer.

"Maybe we should go to the junkyard. Lots of things to blow up there."

We headed in that direction. I let a moment of silence pass while I prepared to tell him my big news.

"So, uh, aren't you curious about why Shenice kicked you out like that?" I asked.

"'cause she has to meddle in everything and have it be her way", he replied bitterly.

"Um, V, think outside yourself a minute. Didn't you notice we didn't leave the school with everyone else after your light show?"

"No. I went home…wait, so you stayed…why?"

I flashed my super-satisfied grin at him as a hint.

"You didn't…"

"Yep."

Static stopped cold, hanging in the air to stare at me, jaw dropped, for about the tenth time in three days.

"You did…you really did?"

"Yep."

"You and Shenice?"

"I told you I liked her."

"You told me you liked me too. You almost…"

I shrugged in response.

'maybe I'm just confused', I said telepathically.

'no, I'm confused', he replied, also telepathically.

"You shouldn't let me do that", I told him out loud.

"What? Do what?"

"Telepathy. It might be dangerous. So don't let me do it."

How would I stop you?"

"I don't know. Zap me."

He arched an eyebrow.

"This is getting too weird for me", he muttered, "My best friend, who is an atheist and gay, yet is sleeping with our former female partner, now wants me to zap him every time he uses telepathy."

'well, if it's too weird for you just leave', I accidentally broadcasted.

"Fine, I will", he replied out loud.

He flew a little bit, stopped, turned, and zapped me. Not to hard, but leaving me uncomfortable buzzed.

"Thanks, bro", I sighed.

"Don't mention it", he replied as he flew away.

Now I was at a loss for what to do with the rest of the day. Until it occurred to me that I had a girlfriend now. For the first time in my life, I could go up to someone and have a reasonable expectation of sex. Not guaranteed, but good chances.

I debated on whether to just go home and rest, because of the headache, which had also marred our encounter yesterday. Truly, it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Plus, I had a lot of homework due tomorrow. And there was this really good movie coming on TV tonight. It's not like I need sex…

Aw hell…

I flew off to Shenice's house.

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_"John, always stick to your conscience. Never let anyone else keep it for you. And I mean anyone else." – Priest to John Rock (co-inventor of birth control pill)_

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**This is going to be a longer story than I originally anticipated, and this is only the end of the beginning. The next chapter will be the beginning of the end.**

**So...can I get some reviews up in here? (Looks around hopefully) **


	11. Chapter X

The Moral of the Story – Red Turtle

Alright you all. Here I am again. Let's take a little break and chat a minute

First of all, I have very much appreciated these reviews. I won't lie, some of them made me just about cry. It's amazing to me that I've been able to touch people this way. It's also very sobering.

I will make a specific point about the confusion around Bill Murray (quoted in chapter V). This was not Bill Murray the actor; this was Bill Murray, son of Madelyn Murray O'Hair, who had been quoted in the previous chapter. This is some key American history. Madalyn Murray O'Hair was a famous Atheist, you all can Google her some. Her son Bill Murray converted to evangelicalism on Mother's Day, creating much bitterness. Recently, she was murdered, along with another son and a granddaughter. Bill Murray's quote reflected a deep depravity of morality, and that's why I included it. It didn't actual occur to me that his name being the same as a famous actor would create confusion.

In conclusion:

Bill Murray, son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair Bad

Bill Murray, the famous actor Good

I suggest that you all Google some of these people and quotes and learn about all this stuff. Especially Bob Avakian, who's in the first chapter. You're probably not going to learn this in school.

Now, on with the story, and on with the reviews!

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"_Thus, the question: Would it be moral to inflict pain on this beast to force him to reveal what he knows? Positive law prohibits it. However, the higher law, the moral law, the Natural Law permits it in extraordinary circumstances such as these."_ - Patrick J. Buchanan, March 10 2003 (referring to torturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees).

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So, about a week has passed with out a chapter-worthy incident. After all, Richie's got to have some quiet days in him. Life goes up, life goes down. But, today will be a most notable day…

Virgil and I flew in carefree circles above the city, enjoying the increasing warmth of April. The coming summer, and graduation, made me giddy on days like this. The fact that I hadn't been beaten up again added to my good mood, as I'd been worried it would become a regular feature. I was even gladder that arguments with Virgil weren't a regular feature; we managed to bounce back from our disagreements and seemed closer than ever. And to top it off, sex was now a regular feature in my life.

Everything was nice and calm.

Until Static froze in mid-air, eyes wide open.

But I hadn't said anything. I hadn't even thought anything controversial.

"Wha-", I started to ask.

"Francis!", he exclaimed, pointing below.

Indeed, our old buddy Francis was sitting on a porch step. Looking totally human.

"Let's go say hello, shall we?" he suggested, flying down. I wasn't sure what he had in mind, his eyes had an impish quality to them that suggested he wanted more than a casual greeting. Maybe he's hoping that Francis has permanently lost his powers, and for once Virgil will be way more powerful than him, as Static anyway. Course, we're almost graduating high school at this point, but better late than never.

"Heeey, there, Hotsteak", Static greeted.

Francis looked up in surprise, than slight annoyance.

"Sparky. Poindexter. How you doing?" he greeted listlessly.

"Haven't seen you in a while", I replied.

"Like, what, two years?" Virgil added.

"Yeah. Been busy, you know, being fused to Ebon."

"Looks like that problem got all cleared up", I continued, as if this was a normal conversation.

"Looks like", he replied bitterly.

"Care to tell us how?" Static asked.

"Nope."

Static pretended to look at his watch.

"Well, seeing as how it's been more than thirty seconds and you haven't tried to burn us alive, I'd say you lost all your powers."

"Maybe I just matured a little."

"I don't think so", Static replied.

"Well, what are you going to do, arrest me for not having powers?"

"No. But I might shock you if you don't tell me what happened with you and Ebon."

Francis raised an eyebrow. So did I. I know Virgil can get mean, especially lately, but it's rare that he threatens a now defenseless human. Course, it would be useful to know just what happened here, with Francis and Ebon, and…it would be fun to shock him. After all he's done to us…everything since second grade, it would be justified.

"Go ahead. I'm not afraid of you."

Virgil charged up one fist, looking as if he was reading a big blast. Francis eyed him warily.

"I don't think you want to push me. I'm in a bad mood", Virgil warned.

Silence.

"This is your last chance. I want to know how you and Ebon got separated."

"What business is it of yours?" Francis replied.

"I'm a superhero. Everything concerning bad guys is my business."

Somehow I'd gotten left out of the equation here. It was between Francis and Virgil, and I had the distinct impression it had nothing to do with being a superhero.

A moment of silence passed.

Virgil made a sudden movement forward, as if he was going to fully blast Francis, who instinctively jerked back. But no blast was forthcoming.

"You know you got a lot of payback coming to you, Francis", Virgil warned, his eyes no longer impish.

'Virgil, what are you doing?' I telepathiezed. I had no choice, I couldn't ask him out loud or Francis might use the disagreement between us to his advantage. We had to be united in the face of our enemies, private in our disagreements. And that's where telepathy was very handy.

Unless your partner uses his static power to shield his mind from yours. I know he'd been able to do that with Madeline, but all this time I'd thought I was just more powerful than she had been. Apparently all this time he'd been letting me in his head.

But no more. Suddenly I felt powerless. I didn't know the extent of his powers. I didn't know what he was about to do with them. I didn't know how to stop him.

With out warning, Virgil unleashed his power on Francis. But he did not use a full-body blast, which we'd all been expecting. He focused it very deliberately, causing more harm than I had ever seen him put someone in.

Francis didn't even cry out at first, he simply buckled over.

'Hey, V, take it easy', I tried to broadcast, a little stronger than before. I felt the static shield flicker, but I didn't get through.

He wasn't even looking at me.

I let this go on another thirty seconds, a short time in reality but it was insanely long for us. He continued shocking Francis; his whole body glowed now although all that power was still aimed at one small part of one human.

'That's enough', I warned sternly, this time hitting the shield. He might have heard me, but there was no reply. His mind was pushing me out, and he didn't let up on Francis. I could not in good consciousness let this go on any longer.

'Stop it right now!' I ordered forcefully.

He did. Completely. Because I had been so forceful in my command I had not only broken through his shield, I had broken through his mind. He stood still, unable to move under his own will. I quickly released him, but the line had been crossed. I had taken mental control of another entity. In theory, I could now stop bad guys simply by taking them over and marching them into police vans. I had transformed from completely powerless to most powerful metahuman.

Virgil and I stared at each other a full minute.

Meanwhile, Francis whimpered from the ground where he had collapsed.

"Kid...cured…us…of…our…powers…we're…human…now…" Francis managed to say.

I couldn't even look at him.

"What kid?" Virgil asked, having regained his composure.

"Don't…know…name…just…leave…me…alone…please…"

"Where was the kid?" Virgil asked. I tried to pull him away, and he gave me a warning look, a 'you already messed with me enough today' look.

"Docks…found…us…in…ocean…now…go…away…"

Virgil looked ready to question him more, but this time I gave him a warning look. And since I was now the more powerful bang-baby, I won. We flew off together.

When we got sufficiently high enough in the air, I flew in front of him and made him stop to talk. I knew we needed to talk about my developed powers, and what that meant to the world and us, but first we needed to discuss a little matter of torture.

"Virgil, you are never to do that again."

"What?"

"Torture. You are not allowed to use torture."

"That wasn't torture."

"You used pain to get information. That's torture."

"It was Francis. He deserved it."

"NO ONE DESERVES TORTURE!" I yelled, at the same time I bombarded his mind with the phrase _"Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;"_ and the accompanying pictures from international reports on current torture practices.

He closed his eyes and covered his ears.

"Stay out Of My Head!" he yelled back, and an electrical field pushed me back and shorted out my equipment. I landed on a building several feet away, bruised and unable to fly, but still feeling more powerful than anything else on Earth.

He flew down, glowing angrily.

"You told me to shock you if you use your telepathic powers. Well, you used them way too much today!"

"I had to stop you."

"By taking control of my body?"

"I let you go."

"How do I know that?"

"Dude!"

A moment passed. His glow dissipated, and he landed near me.

"I'm sorry", he said quietly, "That was uncalled for. Truth is, Richie, I trust you with my life. I trust you more than I trust myself."

He wept in my arms.

"_Everything is holy! Everybody is holy! Everywhere is holy! Every day is in eternity! Every man is an angel!"-_ Alan Ginsberg


	12. Chapter XI

The Moral of the Story

By: Red Turtle

Chapter XI

Last month's special episode of Static Shock ended with Richie confronting, and then comforting, Virgil around the issue of torture. If only Richie could be everywhere…but that's another dream. I apologize for the long wait, dear readers, and hope this continues to meet/exceed your expectations.

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"_Only Christianity offers a way to understand that physical and moral border. Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation. Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world -- only Christianity."  
_-- **Tom DeLay**, speaking to 300 people at the First Baptist Church of Pearland, Texas (April 12, 2002), quoted from Alan Cooperman, "House GOP whip delivers fervent paean to Christianity" (Washington Post, April 21, 2002); Its, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said DeLay "lacks appreciation for the religious pluralism" of the United States, which he called "particularly disturbing" because DeLay is "a top-ranking member of Congress" and "represents people from the whole spectrum of religious faiths and nonbelievers, not just Christianity"

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"Let's go check out the docks", I gently suggested after a suitable weeping period of about two minutes. If we were inside somewhere I'd allow him all the time he wants, and I'd bring him water and tissue, plus he'd be completely embraced in my arms, instead of the socially-acceptable man-hug I had him in currently in case any news cameras or arch-enemies suddenly showed up.

Yeah, okay", he agreed distractedly, getting out his disk.

I managed to grab him before he flew away.

"You shorted out my skates", I reminded him.

"Oh yeah…did I hurt you?"

"A little", I acknowledged. He had fried part of Backpack and I still felt the bruises from my crash landing, but I wasn't about to burden him further.

"I'm really sorry, Rich."

"It's cool."

We arranged ourselves onto his disc, which required me holding onto his waist, a position I found I rather enjoyed. I'd thought having a girlfriend would get rid of all of **those** feelings for him, but apparently not. By the time our ride ended at the docks, I felt just as enamored of him as I did before Shenice.

Well, that was only a week or so ago, and I have had these feelings for him for years.

I disengaged at the entrance to the docks, preferring to look things over on foot. He folded away the disk and joined me.

But now we were at a loss as to how to proceed. We didn't know anything about who we were looking for except a boy, apparently younger than Francis, going around curing people. Unless he did it in front of us we probably weren't going to catch him. Since I didn't have the use of backpack I couldn't scan for anything. I suppose we could just look around, talk to anyone we see.

I suddenly felt rather ridiculous. This was so Hardy Boys, which I never actually read but my understanding of it fits the metaphor. Virgil and I, we were almost adults. Were we still going to be embarking on adventures like this after high school? And, if we ended up joining the Justice League, were we going to get better costumes? Because, this Gear costume was not exactly cutting edge to begin with, and that was years ago. I guess the bare-arm look is pretty hot, even with my limited muscleage, but I want to change the color scheme to blue, and change the visor to a whole helmet, sort of like the Power Rangers but cooler. And I'm thinking Virgil better incorporate a hat into his new look because eventually someone's going to figure out that Virgil and Static have had the same hair style for four years. In fact, maybe I should design a wig for him, something simple that would stay on through a fight, and thus make a clear distinction between Virgil and Static…

In fact, now that I devote a small portion of my brain power to this costume question, we need to get a lot more serious. We're going to be adults.

Is this even what I want to do with my life? Maybe I should start looking into-

"Can Backpack pick up anything?" Virgil interrupted.

I switched my brain power back to the task at hand.

"Uh…no. You fried it."

"Well, can you pick up anything?" he inquired.

"With what?"

'durr…use your brain powers', came the telepathic response.

"I think it's worth using your powers for", he added outloud, "I mean, a metahuman that can take away superpowers...we got to stop that."

"Right", I agreed. I'd more or less accepted that I had these powers and, as long as no one dumped a bucket of pig blood on me, I wasn't going to lose control and slaughter millions of innocents.

I drew on my experience with Ragtag before, of trying to read someone's thoughts with out making eye contact, but that had just…happened at the time so I needed to figure out how to do it consciously. It took me about half a minute to sense two human entities in our vicinity.

"There's two people in the area", I informed him.

"Who?"

It took another 45 seconds to figure out the phenomenon of how trying to read someone's thoughts with out making eye contact created a connection with them, one which they could use to read my thoughts, which is what happened with Ragtag before. I was relieved to now know that it was not some freak ability he had. I should really sit down and think about things more often, I could have figured this out…well, days ago. I wonder what else-

'Earth to Richie', Virgil interrupted, again, this time mentally.

"Sorry. I can't figure out who they are. There's one person at about…3'oclock to us, and another at 9 O'clock."

"Can't you just read their minds?"

"No. I mean I could but…it's complicated."

"Complicated?"

"Everything with metaphysics is complicated", I told him.

"Okaaay", he sighed in frustration, "Let's check out person number one."

Initially we split off into different directions, apparently each having a different idea of who person number one was. Together we headed for the 3'oclock. We approached carefully on foot, not wanting to be spotted until we knew the situation. I could just be a random drunk but it could also be…

Ebon!

Looking human, just like Hotstreak. Personally, I thought Ebon looked better as a faceless dark shadow.

Next to me, Virgil's jaw dropped. Two long-time arch-enemies found completely helpless in one day.

'remember no torture', I telepathied.

His dropped jaw formed a scowl.

Unlike Hotstreak, we didn't rush to confront Ebon. We watched him smoke a cigarette.

'Maybe we should get Rubberband Man', I silently suggested.

'Maybe', he replied, flexing his hands and causing a small spark fly.

Ebon immediately looked in our direction, and pulled out a gun. Virgil reacted by magnetizing the gun out of his hand.

"Static!" Ebon growled, "You still have your powers! Damn You!"

Not wanting another heavy confrontation, I started pulling Virgil away. He resisted at first, but then pulled out his disc and flew both of us away. Meanwhile Ebon loudly cursed his name.

"Just you come here tomorrow! Just you show up here!" he yelled between generic obscenities. I never heard Ebon use so many swear words, but I think I just haven't been in many social situations with him. The Metabreed probably heard a lot.

At a safe distance in the sky, Virgil cocked his head towards me, that impish look back in his eyes.

"So, do we show up tomorrow?"

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"_The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."  
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."  
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."  
_-- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book one of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series), p. 50

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It's true I would write this story even if no one reviewed at all, but it would be so very lonely, for me and the readers. So I'm very glad you all are here and contributing in that way. Thanks.


	13. Chapter XII

The Moral of the Story

By Red Turtle

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"_Let me be very blunt: the heterosexual transmission of AIDS is, in Africa, a function of truly pathological promiscuity. So this is really a violence issue -- not the same violence we deal with in Boston, where teenagers stab and shoot each other, but the violence of African men who are killing themselves, and killing African women and children, with pathological promiscuity._"  
-- **Eugene Rivers**, in an interview with Eva Thorne in the Boston Review, an interview about HIV in Africa which never once mentioned the word condom, but rather the mission of American churches to advocate the tightening of laws regarding sexuality in African countries

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"Yeaahh", we agreed together, trying to give high-fives but our position together on his disk made that impossible, so instead we knocked fists. I caught Virgil's infectious enthusiasm for a new adventure with old enemies immediately. I'd forgotten how much I loved pissing Ebon off.

"So..what time do you think would be good for him?", Virgil asked.

"Sundown's always good for a showdown", I replied.

"I thought "showdowns" were at noon", Virgil responded.

"Well, that's true both in popular American culture and according to several ancient arabic myths, however it's too early for me."

He sort of hit me, again being hard because of our position on the disk.

"Fine, we'll make it sundown. What are your plans for tonight?"

So taken was I with him right now that I wanted to give some allusion to lying around naked, but it wasn't quite the right moment.

"Nothing, really. Have to fix my skates and backpack. Might go see Shenice."

"How's that going, anyway?"

oh boy. Apparantly not so good considering how much I'd rather be going to see Virgil.

"Uh, you know, we're seeing each other", I replied.

"I never see you guys together at school."

"Well, sometimes we hook up in the hallways between classes", which, now that I think about it, was always nice.

"Yeah, but you don't go anywhere together. Are you even going to the Prom?"

"I should probably ask her", I answered after a moment.

By now we had reached the gas station and landed to change.

"Hey, Richie…?", he asked before we left.

"Yeeeesss?", I replied, doing my best annoying waiter impression.

"Just how smart are you?"

"I…don't know. Why?"

"I was just thinking, instead of running around creating flying skates and personal computers, why don't you take a few minutes more and do something useful for humanity?"

"I thought fighting evil metahumans was useful for humanity."

"No, but…I mean, you have all this brainpower, you think most of this stuff up in five minutes, imagine what you could do if you just thought for an hour or so. Maybe you could come up with the cure for AIDS tonight, like after dinner."

I looked at him, almost thinking he was joking. His eyes reflected dead seriousness.

"A lot of scientists are working on that already."

"Yeah, but you're smarter then they are."

"Who would I tell about the cure?"

"You'd figure that out too."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Seriously. If we're going to be in the Justice Leaugue, we need to start thinking big and really saving humanity."

"Well, okay…"

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"_I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth, and ignorance. I want nothing to do with any order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are capable of becoming happier and more civilized, on this earth, capable of becoming true man, master of his fate and captain of his soul. To attain this I would put priests to work, also, and turn the temples into schools."_  
-- **Jawaharlal Nehru**, in Edgar Snow, _Journey to the Beginning_, from James A. Haught, ed., _2000 Years of Disbelief_

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Keep the reviews coming!


	14. Chapter XIII

(Tap…tap…is this thing on? Hello? Was my last chapter just too short to justify a review? Wow, that's harsh. I'm sure you all will ((cough)) make up for it this time around though, right?)

Chapter XIII

The Moral of the Story

By: Red Turtle

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_"Civilized people – Muslims, Christians, and Jews – all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator."_ - John Ashcroft (Attorney General)

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Pork-chops and applesauce are my favorite meal, so dinner was very pleasant despite the contrived conversation my dad kept forcing (everyone had to say at least one sentence about their day). Eventually Dad took over entirely, because his favorite football team had a chance at the superball and he could talk forever about that. I noticed Mathew looking at me oddly. I didn't like Mathew looking at me at all, and this was unnerving, because it probably meant he was going to initiate some kind of discussion.

Sure enough, after supper, in the middle of my beginning research into AIDS (which consisted of beginning to realize how much information was out there and how was I going to handle it all) there came a knock at the door to my basement room.

"Can I help you?" I asked politely of my little cousin.

"Are you busy?"

"Well, I was getting off on black gay devil worshipping porn so I only have a minute."

Something about Mathew really brings out the evil side in me. I only said this having verified that my parents were not in listening range, although they already know about the black gay part.

He actually glanced at my zipper to confirm that I was just being crude.

"Seriously, Ritchie". He sighed.

Well, cousins are sort of like brothers, and something said I have to let him talk to me, even if it means putting off the cure for AIDS for a while, so I allowed him into my room.

"Are any of your friends mutants?" he asked.

"What? Uh…no…why?"

"Because wasn't it most of your class that got hit with the gas?"

"Who says I'm friends with most of my class?"

"Well, do you know anything about…how to handle someone who might be a mutant?"

"You mean meta-humans? Just stay out of their way."

"Mom told me you were kidnapped by meta-humans once, and your Dad had to save you."

"Yeah, that was a while ago. I've managed to stay out of trouble since then."

This wasn't true, of course, as both Ritchie and Gear I had been kidnapped on other occasions. They always go for the smart ones.

"I just want to know what's the best way to stop a meta-human. Because I think a kid in my class might be one."

My mind split in two, half continuing the conversation and the other half calculating all the ramifications of this revelation.

"I just rely on Static Shock and Gear to stop them. They're our town's heroes, you know."

"But they are meta-humans. You'd have to stop them too."

"No you don't. They don't do bad things with their powers."

"Their powers are a bad thing."

"Richard! Phone!" Mom yelled, saving me from getting drawn into another unpleasant argument.

Mathew followed me upstairs and went to the living room while I picked up the phone.

"Ritchie! News! Watch it now!" Virgil told me in no uncertain terms.

I carried the phone to the TV in the living room, which my family was gathered around with a sense of dread. The footage showed screaming people being blown along a sidewalk into cars and buildings. Then it centered on Slipstream, another old enemy. One I never even enjoyed fighting, as I remember the only time I fought him I ended up with a broken arm. But that was before I was Gear.

By now Virgil had hung up the phone, no doubt changing into Static. I needed to do the same.

"Hey, Dad, can I go spend the night at Virgil's?"

"You want to leave the house with that villain running around? No way!" Mom answered.

"But Mom, I'm almost eighteen I can handle-"

"You heard your mother, Ritchie", Dad replied.

With I sigh I put the phone back down. That put visiting Shenice out of the question too. Unless I snuck out, but there were no windows in the basement, and between Mom by the back door in the kitchen and Dad by the front in the living room I had no choice, unless I provoked a show-down, but given the discussion I was just having with Mathew that would possibly be suspicious, if I were to leave and then Gear conveniently shows up on the news.

I got to move out.

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"_I don't need to argue here that the evil in the world proves that the universe is not designed, but only that there are no signs of benevolence that might have shown the hand of a designer. But in fact the perception that God cannot be benevolent is very old. Plays by Aeschylus and Euripides make a quite explicit statement that the gods are selfish and cruel, though they expect better behavior from humans. God in the Old Testament tells us to bash the heads of infidels and demands of us that we be willing to sacrifice our children's lives at His orders, and the God of traditional Christianity and Islam damns us for eternity if we do not worship him in the right manner. Is this a nice way to behave? I know, I know, we are not supposed to judge God according to human standards, but you see the problem here: If we are not yet convinced of His existence, and are looking for signs of His benevolence, then what other standards can we use?"_  
-- **Steven Weinberg**, "A Designer Universe?" ††

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	15. Chapter XIV

The Moral of the Story

By Red Turtle

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_If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being._  
-- **Rev. Jerry Falwell** **(attributed: source unknown)**

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Just as I was setting the phone down in the cradle, resolved to spending the night trapped at home, fretting with worry for the first time in about two years, it rang again.

"Hello?" I asked hesitantly.

"Ritchie, let me talk to your parents", Virgil's Dad requested urgently.

I handed the phone to my father, and listened patiently to a one sided conversations that seemed to involve Mr. H needing me to fix his computer, and some assurances that the evil meta-human was located in a totally different part of town. My father wasn't nearly as protective as my mother, and soon an acceptable agreement had been reached.

"Mr. Hawkins is coming to pick you up, Ritchie", Dad informed me as he hung up the phone, "And you might as well spend the night there."

I contained my excitement and instead put on a persona of meek acceptance.

Mathew followed me to my room and watched me pack.

"You're not scared of that mutant?" he asked.

"Well, when you live with them, you get used to it", I told him, "Although it has been a while."

He shook his head.

"You can't get used to something like that, Ritchie. You can't allow yourself to, otherwise…"

With my innocent overnight bag packed I turned my attention to him.

"Otherwise you might accept someone like me", I concluded his logic, although coming awfully close to betraying my secret.

"You still have hope. But those mutants…that's God's punishment."

"Then how would we stop them?"

He looked even more serious.

"Use God's Love. That's what I'm doing with my…classmate."

"Is it working?"

"A little."

"Do you want to tell me the kid's name?'

He looked at me thoughtfully.

"No, not yet. Besides, what would you do?"

I shrugged.

"I just don't want you crucifying anyone."

He narrowed his eyes at me as the horn honked outside.

"Would you inform Mr. Hawkins that a car horn is not a doorbell?" Dad gruffed as I left. I didn't dignify that with a response. I'm sure Mr. H is just a little concerned with getting me as fast and safely as possible.

"Hello, Ritchie", he greeted me warmly as I sat down. I immediately felt at home with him, even in a car.

"Hi. Thanks for getting me out of there."

He handed me my Gear uniform, and my skates I had managed to repair at the gas-station before heading home. Backpack was still out, though, which would put me at a disadvantage. Course who needs Backpack when I could just take over Slipstream's mind and march him into a jail-cell?

"No problem. I wanted to make sure you were able to help Virgil. I remember that meta-human from a few years back. Looks tough."

"Yeah, the last time we fought he broke my arm."

He almost stopped the car.

"Is that what happened to your arm? You know I thought…well, I knew you didn't jump into an empty pool."

Remembering how silly the cover-story had been made me smile. Then I felt a sting of sadness. No one had questioned the story, yet they hadn't believed it. It did sound very much like a cover-up of an abused child, not a superhero.

We pulled into an alley a few blocks from a tornado flashing with lightning, indicating Virgil and Slipstream engaged somewhere within. I quickly donned my uniform and hopped out, catching my breathe from the wind-effect of the tornado. My face shield failed to completely protect me, and Virgil didn't even have that.

"Thanks, Mr. H", I called as my rocket-skates kicked in.

"Be careful, Ritchie", he called after me, the wind carrying his voice away.

I readied a nitro-blast-cap, thinking that would be most effective against a wind-mutant. But I didn't want to hit Virgil by accident, so I took a minute to triangulate the lightning patterns and locate him in the cloud. Then I threw the blast cap against the wind, timing it so it would explode away from him.

None of which matter, because it didn't go off. I realized as soon as I threw it that I hadn't used these things in more than a year; it's not a weapon I choose for common criminals. Of course the nitro-compound isn't necessarily going to be active after that long a time.

So all I did was announce my presence to Slipstream, who quickly blasted me onto a roof with about 200 mph winds, hard enough to scrape the skin of my arms where I landed. Yeah, I'm so upgrading my armor, even if it means putting off the cure for AIDS another day or so.

Virgil took the opportunity to shock him, but only got a few seconds in before he was blown into me.

'why don't you do to him what you did to me?', he telepathized as we helped each other to our feet, bracing against the wind.

Even though he was right next to me, and communicating through my head, his voice resonated distant and fuzzy. Shouting vocally was out of the question, Virgil could barely breathe in this wind and the face shield left my ears exposed, so wind obliterated all other sound. A mental attack seemed like the most effective option, but when I tried to look at Slipstream I got blown off balance.

'I can't focus', I managed to communicate while holding onto part of the roof.

Virgil created a force field around us, giving me a break from the barrage of wind. I found my thoughts cleared instantly.

'thanks, bro'

'I can't hold it too long. His attack is really strong'

Indeed. Even with the force-field protecting my immediate vicinity, trying to focus on Slipstream was impossible. The wind just kept interfering, and all I could get was a one-second lock.

'hurry up, bro'

'I'm trying', I took a second to communicate. At least now I could hear Virgil clearly.

Either we needed to change tactics, or I needed to do something mental to Slipstream in one second. Virgil's shield flickered, urging me to take a chance. I used 100 of my brain (including the 10 that was designing a blue Gear outfit, with full helmet, full sleeves, built in stereo system and would withstand extreme temperatures using affordable materials available on the internet), and at the next 1-second lock I overloaded his brain with a simple command.

I wasn't sure it would work. I wasn't even sure what I did, I just kind of inserted the word "nice" into every area of his brain I could access in one second.

The wind stopped, and Slipstream dropped from the sky. Virgil, ever the hero, rushed out and magnetized his belt, landing him gently on the ground, where I joined him.

"nice…nice…nice…" Slipstream repeated the word I had put in his brain.

A meta-human containment team soon arrived. I was surprised they got here so soon given they haven't actively functioned in about two years. I guess they've just been on call this whole time, waiting for the meta-human menace to return.

Slipstream limply allowed himself to be contained. The full ramifications of what I might have just done here started to hit me.

"nice…nice…nice…" he continued repeating.

'okay, Ritchie, he's under control. You can release him now', Virgil prompted.

I didn't reply. Using 100 of my brain to do this didn't allow for thinking it through.

"nice…nice…nice…"

"So, um, when does this wear off?" one of the meta-human team members inquired.

"In a little while", I assured him.

Virgil raised an eye at the hint of squeakiness in my voice. He grabbed my arm and took off.

"Thanks, guys", another meta-human team member waved graciously. He might not be so gracious a few hours from now when they have to figure out how to keep Slipstream alive.

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"_I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say anything positive:  
You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil __--__ you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself."  
_** -- Dan Barker, former clergyman, quoted from his book, Losing Faith in Faith**

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	16. Chapter XV

Moral of the Story - Red Tale

A/N: Yes life has gotten hectic for me, but rest assured that not a day went by that I didn't think about this story and how you all were waiting for me to update it. Plot thickener would come to me while I'm at work, visiting family or even protesting the war a couple weekends ago. I've rewatched episodes making sure I got certain elements down, and I hope this is to your expectations.

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_"What is the use of higher learning, critical thinking and educational skills when they do not enable you to know God?" --_ **Robert T. Lee, on his web site **

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When we got sufficiently in the air, Virgil turned to face me. Despite the dire consequences facing my actions, I couldn't help but notice that he had conducted the fight wearing his hood up, changing his look signifigantly. For one thing, now you couldn't tell he had dreads, which went a long way to protecting our identities.

"Is there something we need to sum up about this battle?", he asked anxiously.

"Yeah…definitely keep your hood up like that. That's hot."

A scrawl flashed across his face as he pushed the hood back down. My brain instantly switched to a more serious mode, which meant confronting what I had done. The ramifications were still running around my head. This isn't reversible. I wiped his brain out with a single command. If there hadn't been all that damn wind…

"Maybe I should rephrase that. What the fuck did you do to him?"

"You didn't used to swear so much", I pointed out.

"Is he going to recover?", he asked, ignoring my attempts to change the conversation.

"No. Probebly not."

"I…never imagined having to say this to you, but there's no bad-guy killing, maining, or mentally-destroying on this team."

"I know. No torture either."

A slight scrowl crossed his face.

"So what happened? And don't use that telepathy with me anymore. Just tell me."

We hovered silently in the air for a moment while I gathered my thoughts, analyzing exactly what transpired and preparing a statement Virgil could understand.

"I was trying to just take him over, like I did with you, but…all the wind kept interfering, I couldn't think and I…pushed too hard…"

"Did you at least learn how he got his powers back before you did that?"

"Dude, you were there! How would I have had a chance to do that? I couldn't think!"

"This is what happens when you don't think! Maybe we should go back to shocking you whenever you use your powers."

"I don't think it actually works that way", I told him, "We're going to need my powers to figure out what's going on. And now that I know not to…do that…I won't do it."

"Can you really control it?", he asked carefully.

"Yeah. I just, like I said, I couldn't think, because of the wind, and I didn't know…"

He eyed me warily.

The moon came out briefly, making us realize how late it was.

"Why don't we check out the docks again",He suggested, "It's our only lead, and, we only have a couple hours until tomarrow anyway."

Inodded his agreement. So off we flew, to the docks.

Everything always happens at the docks.

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_"If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness." __**-- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World**_

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	17. Chapter XVI

The Moral of the Story – Red Tale

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_"Therefore, if the earthly power errs, it shall be judged by the spiritual power ... but if the supreme spiritual power errs it can be judged only by God, and not by man ... Therefore we declare, state, define and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff."  
-- **Pope Boniface VIII**, in the 1302 bull Unam Sanctam, quoted from Helen Ellerbe, __The Dark Side of Christian History_

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Among the very last feats I performed with my awesome mental powers was to truly appreciate the glimmer effect of the moonlight on Virgil's costume as he glided through the air ahead of me. I had updated his costume material last year, even though we weren't doing much active fighting I always thought of how to increase his potential for the future, and when I found lightweight magnetic mesh material in the perfect blue shade I knew what to do with it. While flying he needed to maintain a constant electrical charge with his disk that resulted in a beautiful glow, and when you added a dark sky and a touch of moonlight…well, honestly it was even better than seeing him naked.

So good in fact that it nearly led to my demise.

"Richie!" Static shouted just in time to alert me to the flames spiraling towards me. He sent a helpful spark of electricity to my skates to give them the necessary boost of power to avoid the attack. Together we circled out of range and under one of the docks, Virgil carefully avoiding the water. Another blast followed us but landed in the water and fizzled out.

"Francis?" I asked.

"Hotstreak", he corrected.

"But…he didn't have his powers…"

A small barge some distance from us exploded in fire, causing both us to instinctively move back further. The waves rose a little, and I protectively sheltered Virgil from the worst of the swell.

"He has them now", Virgil noted darkly.

"But…how…" I sputtered, as nothing in my head could begin to comprehend this development.

"That's what we haveto figure out. Looks like we came to the right place at the right time."

"Okay let me think about this for a minute", I ordered.

I had to ignore the flash of inspiration on how to use stem cells to create an effective HIV vaccine and instead focus on whether I could sense any other presence, besides Hotstreak (who had moved on for the moment). There were in fact several people crawling about the docks at this time of night, but with out exposing myself I couldn't even tell if they were human or metahuman.

Virgil tapped me on the shoulder.

"Hey, I know you're thinking but let's get out of this spot before I get soaked, okay?

Virgil toned down his glow as we cautiously flew out from under the dock and landed on dry ground near one of the warehouses.

"Anything?" he asked.

"There's a couple of people on the other side of this building", I pointed helpfully, "Maybe we could sneak up on them and see what's going on."

"You can't just figure it out?" he asked, honestly surprised.

"No, I got nothing. Maybe the kid that cures the powers…maybe they come back. But I don't think so because...Slipstream lost his powers from the cure...how would he get them back? And, as far as I can figure, the cure would prevent new bang baby gas from forming, so it can't be that…"

"We need to find that kid", Virgil sighed.

"Maybe he's here tonight." I suggested.

"Right", Virgil muttered, getting off his glider, "Let's go check those people out."

I wasn't sure what I was expecting. To see Madeline did cross my mind as I racked my brain for all of our old formidable foes, but she wasn't the source of the trouble this time.

"-not? You know I'm way stronger than all these twerps you're giving powers back too", she argued, pouting slightly. Two years may seem like a long time but it hasn't done anything for her maturity levels.

"Yes, but I'm not giving hand outs. Besides, I'm not sure I'd want to give your powers back, you might be…a little too strong for my tastes", Ragtag sneered.

'Ragtag!' Virgil projected urgently into my mind.

'He's giving them back powers!', I confirmed, relieved to have solved this part of the mystery.

'But how come he didn't lose his?'

'He must not have been in Dakota when the cure was released. We haven't seen him in years, he could have been anywhere and just came back now, and…imagine what people must be paying him for powers now! Why didn't I see that earlier? We run into Ragtag and suddenly Slipstream has powers again-'

'-And he…didn't he have the ability to take powers away too? So he's responsibly for it all?'

'…HotStreak said it was a kid though. And my cousin said something about a kid with powers too. So there's more than Ragtag.'

At this point our telepathic discussion was interrupted by a shrill scream from Madeline as she charged Ragtag in an effort to get her powers back.

'Let's take care of them and then look for the kid, okay?' Virgil asked.

'Sounds like a plan.'

We stood up and I launched two trusted zap caps to unwind around them as Virgil blasted Madeline and Ragtag together, we synced it so that both of them fell together in a tied up and unconscious heap.

"We still got it", Virgil boasted, blowing playfully on his electrified trigger finger.

"Yeah but…we can't ask them any questions."

"I'd rather keep them this way, don't you think?"

"Yeah", I agreed, racking my brain to extract more knowledge from this development. Something still didn't fit. Something about that kid…

"Are there more metahumans here?" Virgil asked.

"More people, don't know if they're metahumans. There's one over there, on the other side of the docks, one over by the gates at the beginning, one just to the right of us about a…half mile or so."

"You want to split up? We'll just observe them, keep in touch mentally…do some reconnaissance? Then we'll know what were up against, right?"

"Sounds like a good idea…" I mused, still thinking about the kid, the missing link.

Virgil hopped his glider and flew towards the first location I mentioned, keeping low and hugging the building in true secret agent style. I decided to head right in a similar manner, not wanting to get caught if it did turn out to be some big bad guy, like Ebon with his powers back. I haven't had to worry about Ebon in two years.

At first I was relieved to find a small, human looking figure walking through the docks. Then I was excited, realizing it was a kid…maybe _the_ kid. But upon closer examination, excitement turned to confusion. And that confusion was such that it overwhelmed my grand intellect, causing me to do something utterly stupid which I would regret for the rest of my life.

"Mathew, what are you doing here?" I asked out loud.

He turned to face me with equal confusion, although mine was slowly melting into utter mortification.

"Richie? Is that you?"

Crap!

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_"I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create."_  
-- **Vincent Van Gogh** (_attributed: source unknown_)

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	18. Chapter XVII

The Morel of the Story – Red Tale

A/N: I hope you all are still following me, as I have every intention of finishing this story. It just might take me a while, and for that I apologize. I do appreciate the numbers of people waiting to be alerted to updates of this story. I won't let you down.

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_"It's war!"  
_-- **Ken Ham**, targeting Christians who do not take the Bible as literally as he does, upon opening his Creationism Museum in Kentucky (January 15, 2002), quoted from "No God, Period!"

_"This is war."  
_-- **Rev. Jack Harvey**, threatening to run Wiccans off the military bases, quoted from Barry Shlachter, "Bothered and bewildered; Wiccans at Hood shrug off media hubbub," Star-Telegram, August 7, 1999

"_Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity."  
_-- Sen. Joseph McCarthy, identifying the "final, all-out battle" as being between atheism and Christianity (not Communism and Capitalism or the Soviet Union and the United States) in his famous address to the Ohio County Women's Republican Club on February 9, 1950. This is the address which launched the terrifying and destructive "McCarthy Era" attacks upon many U.S. citizens.

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"Ritchie", he gasped, either because of my inappropriate swear word or because I had just revealed my secret identity to one of the worst possible people.

"Look, never mind, just get out of here, it's dangerous", I urged him, considering erasing his mind like I did to Slipstream, maybe I could do it just a tad less…

As I grabbed his arm he grabbed mine.

"You're a bang-baby", he confirmed.

"Yeah, get over it, come on let's…"

It was quick. Instead of me erasing his mind, which was in the cards, instead…instead he erased my powers.

Just like that. I crumpled to the ground, unable to control my skates or Backpack. For a few seconds I couldn't even remember my bang-baby name. I lost contact with Virgil, to say nothing of the possible cure for AIDS. I had to remove my helmet; now instead of enhancing the world around me it only distorted everything.

"You had the power? But then you're a bang-baby?" I sputtered, still coming to terms with the loss.

"No. God bought Ragtag to me, so I would have this power to cure the bang babies with his love. Once they're all gone, I will take Ragtag's too, and this war will be ended. This is God's will, that's what I meant when I was asking you before."

On top of having lost the intelligence I'd relied on for the last couple years, I also found myself in shock. My cousin seemed totally rational, and yet I punched him in the face, and as I no longer could think about more than one thing at a time, I continued with that motion, thinking of the sheer emptiness that was now my brain.

He didn't resist, so I kept pummeling. Until a loud crack snapped me out of my rage, and then I started to remember why I was here and that there were other people here as well, and I needed to help Static.

I blinked back tears to clear my vision. And then I blinked again. And a couple more times, as my mind was not that good at processing information anymore, so it took a minute to figure out the thing hanging suspended in front of my chest was a bullet, and that the blood coming from cousin's chest was not the result of my pummeling, which had probably been insignificant, really, but was an exit wound of this bullet.

Well, once I had that down it wasn't hard to guess that it hung suspended due to Virgil's interception, and, looking at the direction it had come from was our old buddy Ebon, who, apparently refusing to negotiate with Ragtag, had decided to get powers the old fashioned way. The two of them were quite a distance away, I hadn't noticed until just now, but Virgil, after twisting Ebon's gun with a snap of his fingers, flew towards us.

"Ritchie, is he…?"

The bullet that had been hanging between me and Mathew dropped, no longer under Virgil's power. And as I released my cousin, he dropped too. I couldn't even remember how to do first aid.

But I gathered myself together in time to stop Virgil from administrating any help.

"Don't touch him! Stay back, get back over there!" I ordered, pushing him a little harder than I meant too.

"Ritchie, what…"

And then he must have realized that we no longer had a mental link, that I wasn't wearing my helmet, that I could no longer fly, and backpack had detached himself and rested limply on the ground.

"He was the kid?"

"He was", I stated, emphasizing the 'was' part. It didn't take a genius too see Mathew wasn't going to make it. His eyes were already glazed over, and I couldn't bring myself to offer any comfort to him. 

Virgil turned back to look for Ebon, but he had already run away. As a human, he could be held accountable for what happened here.

"Ritchie…come on, I'll take you home and radio help for your cousin. We can't have you found here like…this."

I numbly gathered my "gear", now useless, and climbed onto the disk, taking no notice of my surroundings as he flew us back, only dimly aware of him using his powers to alert authorities to the area of the docks. It didn't matter too much; Mathew was dead so time was hardly of the essence. I wasn't sure how I felt about that yet, he'd only been a kid but…

"Ritchie, we're you going to my house or yours?" he asked.

"Yours. Your Dad arranged for me to spend the night."

"Are you sure you don't want to be with your family?"

I paused to try and think, but nothing would come except simply that I liked Virgil's home better, and I didn't want to be around when they found out about Mathew.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

We flew in silence. I think Virgil was more upset than me, probably more traumatized, he hated guns and he likely felt responsible for not stopping the bullet in time. And he might not appreciate how difficult our lives were about to get with Mathew knowing my secret identity.

When we arrived at him home, he let me in through the window, and turned around.

"Where are you going?" I inquired.

"Ragtag and Madeline are still there. I'd like to try and contain them, at least Ragtag. That's key to stopping the metahumans."

"Oh", I sighed, realizing I wasn't coming along. I would be of no help.

He patted me on the back.

"I'll be back soon. You can talk to my Dad if you need to."

And then I was alone.

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_"Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established."_  
-- **Ludwig Feuerbach**, _The Essence of Christianity_ (1841), from James A. Haught, ed., _2000 Years of Disbelief_

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	19. Chapter XVIII

_"__And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life."_ - Mathew 19:29, King James Version

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Without the great intellect I had depended on for the last two years of my life, I could think of nothing else to do but curl into a ball of uselessness. Even that simple task I fucked up, the corner I chose put me in the direct path of an uncomfortable breeze from the window. Had I the brain power I possessed an hour ago, I could calculate the trajectory of the wind and move safely from it. And had I any will at all left in me, I could simply get up and close the damn window. Having neither of these valueble resources, I simply sat in the corner until Mr. H came in. He turned on the light, looked me over and left.

When he returned he carried a blanket and a cup of hot tea. Now, the window shut, I sipped the tea in quiet, wrapped in a blanket so fuzzy it was probebly reserved specifically for comforting tramitized teenagers. Maybe it had comforted Virgil when his mother...

Mr. H interpretted my shaky sigh as a sign I was ready to talk.

"Do you want to be with your family?", he asked gently.

"I already am", I answered.

Just imagining the atmosphere at my house, Elizabeth and Mom crying, Dad probebly yelling and swearing about hoodlems, was enough to give me an ulcer. Besides, I had learned long ago my Dad would never earn the true title of father from me, that honor belonged to Mr. H.

A silence passed, which I filled with more sips of tea. It was helping the shock ease away, to be replaced with more rational sadness.

"Ritchie, I don't know exactly what happened tonight, but I know your cousin was shot, you and Virgil were there, and neither of you are bullet-proof. And I know I worry for you both."

"Virgil saved me, he's as good as bullet-proof. And you don't have to worry about me anymore, Mr. H. I'm not a superhero now."

He glanced at the pile of discarded 'Gear' on Virgil's bed.

"Listen", he replied, placing a firm and loving hand on my shaky shoulder, "You were a hero before you had your powers. And I will always worry about you."

This tipped the emotional wheelbarrow I'd been holding back, and out spilled the tears. All for myself, though, for the real loss of the enity Gear, for the fact that I will never be on the Justice League, unless it really was to be their mechanic, that I was so close to actually developing the cure for AIDS, that I wasted so much time not thinking about bigger world questions and now it was too late, that Static would be going places I couldn't follow, and that Ragtag could reverse all of this. For the first time, the concept of Satan, and the horror of making a deal with him, made sense. I would never do it, but the temptation would always be there, and the result would be a hell on Earth.

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_"Life should be lived so vividly and so intensely that thoughts of another life, or of a longer life, are not necessary."_ -- Marjory Stoneham Douglas (source unknown)


	20. Chapter IXX

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_"We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There's a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody's values will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe."_ - Gary Bauer (American Values)

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I don't know how long it took for my all out bawling to recede to a steady weeping. The only way to judge would be from how soaked Mr's H's shoulder pajamas were where he'd held me all this time. As a counselor in one of the worst cities for teenagers in the world, this was probably nothing new for him. But it was new for me.

A gentle scrape at the window indicated Virgil's return.

"Hi", he greeted quietly, probably expecting to find things in this state but still not sure how to handle it.

"Did you take care of…everything?", Mr. H inquired.

"Yeah…I mean, what I could…uh, how's…"

By now I'd managed to extract myself from Mr. H's shoulder, and the steady weeping retreated to more or less normal breathing, interspersed with the occasional sob. I did not volunteer an answer, though.

"I think I've done all I can for the moment", Mr. H said, patting me on the back, "He'll recover with time."

I nodded, that sounded about right. In a million years I should be able to look back on all this and laugh.

"Me too", Virgil echoes sadly, removing his mask.

Mr. H left the room. Virgil and I unconsciously moved together to sit on his bed. The flood of tears Virgil must have been holding back for hours started to flow. Although I'd managed to contain mine, seeing Virgil cry brought them back anew.

"I'm so sorry about Mathew", he told me, rubbing at his eyes with the gestures of a five-year old.

My tears stopped. For a moment I realized how we had very different, extremely different, views on how traumatic Mathew's death was. Virgil curled into me and I gently comforted him, deciding to keep to myself the fact that I wasn't sad at all about Mathew, except to be slightly sad by the fact that I wasn't sad. Perhaps Virgil didn't realize yet the enormity of the loss of my powers and that's what was affecting me.

"It was all my fault", he whispered some time later, the tears having stopped long before mine did, but I sensed all that anger and pain was still inside him somewhere, to be brought out in an electro-magnet rage at some less-opportune time.

"Ebon shot him", I pointed out, "And he shouldn't have been there anyway."

"But…I'm the superhero."

I didn't have a reply to that. Stupid brain was coming up blank on comforting and enlightening things to say.

"I couldn't stop you from getting shot either", he sighed, remembering our high-school's real-life encounter with the After-School special known as "Angry loner boy brings gun to school to shoot bully and accidentally shoots good, honest kid trying to help him".

Suddenly a good idea came to me. Virgil doesn't release his anger or sadness with crying. He blows shit up. That's what's therapeutic to him. And right now, although I can't really participate in destroying anything, I would sure like to watch.

"Virgil?"

"Yeah?"

"You hate guns."

"Yes."

"Lets go around for a while, find out where people are keeping guns these days, and get rid of them."

Virgil considered me for a moment. Then he put his mask back on and whipped out his disk. Then he glanced longingly at me.

"I'll follow on my scooter", I told him, "Just like old times."

It took a few seconds for this to sink in for him.

"Oh, God, Ritchie…"

"Don't worry about it. Let's just go", I replied.

Although he almost reconsidered, he did fly off into the alley, waiting for me to join him, which I did, quietly. I didn't want Mr. H to know what we were up to, even with out my vast intellect I had the feeling this might not be such a good idea after all. But, like most bad ideas, if we pulled it off we would probably feel a lot better, and the idea of feeling better, even for a moment, pulled great weight with us right now.

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"_B__oth of them were very good and kind __--__ the one who went to church and the one who didn't. And no doubt from them I learned to like both Christians and sinners equally well."_  
-- Langston Hughes, contrasting Auntie Reed, who went to church at St. Luke's AME and Uncle Reed, who was not a church-goer, in _Not Without Laughter_

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	21. Chapter XX

A/N: I have finally finished this story. I knew it was coming, I was torn between wanting to conclude it and not wanting it to ever end. So, savor this last chapter and may it make a good impression on your own thoughts and philosophy as you navigate this world.

Also, there are several good books on Atheism/Religion/Morality out right now. I would highly recommend "Away With All Gods" by Bob Avakian. There's a You-Tube debate between Chris Hedges "I don't Believe in Atheists" and Sunsara Taylor promoting "Away With All Gods". Look for AtheismGodMorality.

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"_What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous ... it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God! Get out of that seat ... You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon."_ -- **Monique Davis**, Illinois State Representative, Democrat, of Chicago; MSNBC _Countdown_'s 'Worst Person in The World' for Tuesday, April 8, 2008, for her tirade against Rob Sherman to talk-show host and atheist activist Rob Sherman during his testimony Wednesday afternoon before the House State Government Administration Committee in Springfield; in "Get Out of Here, Atheists!" from (7 April, 2008); Sherman is the same reporter to whom Vice-President George H W Bush decreed, "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God.")

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The police were rolling hard through the neighborhoods right now, given what had happened at the docks. On top of that, anti-meta-human squads roamed the streets, and a curfew had been enforced by the mayor, so I abandoned my scooter and rode on Static's glider with my head strategically covered by a plastic bag (yeah, yeah, not smart, but it's not like I'm an infant). We spotted three police helicopters, two over by the docks, and one flying all around.

With this atmosphere, and the fact that it was four o'clock in the morning, too early for gang bangers, too late for crackheads, the streets were completely empty.

Which is just as well. Any merits my plan had dissolved once I breathed in the sweet pre-dawn air. My attention soon focused on the singing birds. It was actually quite loud, I don't think I'd ever heard them so clearly. But I had never been awake at this hour, no matter what project I was working on, what criminals we fought, what things I were bound and gagged to, even being with Shenice… I had always gone to bed by 3:00 in the morning.

The sky faintly hinted at the sun hovering just below the horizon, but the moon still shone clearly in the dark sky. Such mesmerizing craters… I tried to remember what I used to know about the moon. A twinge of sadness accompanied the memory of looking out at the beauty of the universe from the windows of the Justice League's Watch Tower windows.

"Ritchie?"

"Hmm?"

He guided us to the clock tower, a favorite hang out (although admittedly much easier to cling to as Gear than as myself). He made sure I was seated securely on top of the number 7 while easily connecting himself to the metal inlay.

"Want to just talk?", He suggested.

"Hmm", I answered.

Although I had tried to give an affirmative "hmm" the conversation lapsed. My mind turned back to the events of the night. I vaguely wondered how my parents were doing…and I felt a special pity for Elizabeth. I didn't like Elizabeth or Mathew, and yet now I could remember fondly one of the many Great America adventures we'd shared as youth…I think there's a picture somewhere from one of the rides, I was cowering in fear, Elizabeth nearly threw up and Mathew enthusiastically waved his arms in the air, a carefree child that had so much potential.

"This night really changed a lot of things", Virgil commented.

"Yeah", I agreed, carefully steadying myself as I awkwardly shifted my weight. I never realized how uncomfortable the cold, hard, dewy strip of metal would be for a mere mortal wearing sweat pants.

"I can't believe your powers are gone."

"Yeah…I kind of wished I hadn't accepted that scholarship to Harvard as a Nuero-Micro-Chemist major."

The conversation lapsed again, but only for a minute.

"You know I…I'm not going to college" Virgil announced.

I jerked my head up to look over at him, almost losing my balance in the motion. He reached out and grasped my arm to steady me back into position. Our eyes met and for just a split second it felt just like it did in the bathroom. To me, anyway, there was no indication he felt anything at all. But his hand remained gently squeezing my wrist.

"I've been accepted to the Justice League. I leave after graduation. I'll be doing a lot of training and fighting and…"

Again we lapsed into silence. The birds chattered away.

"Congratulations" I finally responded.

"Yeah, I know", he replied quietly, "I found out earlier today…might as well tell you now and just…get it all over with in one night."

"Thanks, I appreciate that", I replied, perhaps a little more bitterly than I meant to. I was too emotionally drained and physically exhausted to be angry or sad, so in a way it was the perfect time to tell me that my best friend would be leaving me in less than a month.

"I really wish you could join me. It's going to be hard enough with out my pops, or Sharon or Daisy but…I can't imagine being with out you. You're like my brother, you know. At least as Gear you could have..."

He trailed off.

"I guess that's all part of growing up", I sighed.

"I guess", he replied.

More lapses of silent, until the sun came into view above the horizon. He stood up and helped me step back onto his glider. My instability caused me to slip and fall clear off, fortunately he was right there to pull me up back up again. There was nothing intimate about the motion, just a typical saving-best-friend's-life gesture, but I filed it among my most treasured moments. And I made a big decision about my own life.

"Can you drop me off at the gas station? I just kind of want to be alone for a while", I requested.

He turned to look me in the eyes worriedly.

"You're okay, right? I mean, you're not going to…"

"Dude", I sighed, "I am way too tired to commit suicide. Besides, after this day, things can only go up, right?"

He nodded, assured by my sarcastic optimism, and soon I was left at the gas station.

I rubbed my arm where he had squeezed me when I fell off the glider. No, suicide hadn't crossed my mind…but something else had.

First I grabbed a full, hot cup of coffee from the espresso machine, something I could still operate even down to my last brain cell. Then I sat down at our computer and let my work begin:

RESUME:

RICHARD FOLEY

OBJECTIVE:

IT support for Watch Tower

(Or Janitorial/Maintainance Support)

(Or File Clerk/Secretary)

(Or chef)

EXPERIENCE:

2004 – 2008 Gear Dakota, Earth

_Superhero_

Stop super-powered criminals

Built and maintained equipment for Partner Static Shock

...

One way or another, I'm joining the Justice League.

The End

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_Imagine there's no Heaven  
It's easy if you try  
No hell below us  
Above us only sky  
Imagine all the people  
Living for today_

_Imagine there's no countries  
It isn't hard to do  
Nothing to kill or die for  
And no religion too  
Imagine all the people  
Living life in peace_

_You may say that I'm a dreamer  
But I'm not the only one  
I hope someday you'll join us  
And the world will be as one_

_Imagine no possessions  
I wonder if you can  
No need for greed or hunger  
A brotherhood of man  
Imagine all the people  
Sharing all the world_

_You may say that I'm a dreamer  
But I'm not the only one  
I hope someday you'll join us  
And the world will live as one _

**John Lennon - Imagine - 1971**

- Some artists, disagreeing with the song's anti-religion stance, have changed the line "and no religion too" into "and _one_ religion too" in their cover versions.

- The song was included in the list of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks.


End file.
